Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects
Subtitle: The Reykjavík-Eyjafjallajökull Papers
Publisher: Benjamins Publishing Company, John
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 280
ISBN-13: 9789027263513
Subjects: Grammar, comparative and general; Icelandic language, modern
Description: Interest in non-canonically case-marked subjects has been unceasing since the groundbreaking work of Andrews and Masica in the late 70's who were the first to document the existence of syntactic subjects in another morphological case than the nominative. Their research was focused on Icelandic and South-Asian languages, respectively, and since then, oblique subjects have been reported for language after language throughout the world. This newfangled recognition of the concept of oblique subjects at the time was followed by discussions of the role and validity of subject tests, discussions of the verbal semantics involved, as well as discussions of the theoretical implications of this case marking strategy of syntactic subjects. This volume contributes to all these debates, making available research articles on different languages and language families, additionally highlighting issues like language contact, differential subject marking and the origin of oblique subjects.