The Acquisition of Subjecthood

Cole, Peter; Harbert, Wayne; Hermon, Gabriella; Sridhar, S. N.

doi:10.2307/413485

Cited by 147 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…In other words subect properties which were distributed on two NPs converged on one NP. The fact that only coding properties were lost but not behavioral properties supports the claim of Cole et al (1980) that coding properties which were acquired ealier are less easily lost but those which were acquired later are more easily lost.…”

Section: Pastsupporting

confidence: 64%

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From Ergative to Accusative

Noda

1999

Orient

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Section: Pastsupporting

confidence: 64%

“…Thus, both A and O are subjects in an MP transitive sentence. According to Cole et al (1980), behavioral properties are always acquired earlier than coding properties and less easy to be lost than coding properties.…”

Section: Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Ergative to Accusative

Noda

1999

Orient

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“…It will be argued that this mechanism also offers a more plausible explanation for the evolution of ergativity in the Iranian languages generally, a suggestion that follows the spirit, if not the letter, of Benveniste (1952). Finally, it is consonant with more recent accounts of the changes in Germanic from oblique to nominative subjects of Experiencer verbs (Eythórsson & Barddal 2003), where Cole et al's (1980) approach in terms of a transfer of subject properties is called into question.…”

Section: Geoffrey Haig Seminar Für Allgemeine Und Vergleichende Spracmentioning

confidence: 49%

Some argument-structure properties of ‘give’ in the languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia

Comrie

2012

Studies in Language Companion Series

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Haspelmath (forthcoming) provides a typology of the expression of the object arguments of the verb 'give' using three basic types, according to whether the recipient, the gift, or neither is overtly marked differently from patients of monotransitive verbs: indirect object, e.g. 'Mary gives the book to John' primary object, e.g. 'Mary gives John with the book' double object, e.g. 'Mary gives John the book'In addition, he allows a mixed type for languages that permit more than one of these types, such as English, which has both indirect object and double object constructions. A quick glance at the map accompanying his text shows that Europe and Northern and Central Asia are dominated by the indirect object type, with exceptions being largely geographically peripheral or, as in the case of Ket, in a language that is otherwise typologically unusual for its location: For instance, the primary object type is found in Nivkh, the double object construction in Ainu and Ket, and the mixed type in English (and in some other neighboring Germanic languages not included in Haspelmath's sample).While not challenging Haspelmath's basic finding, and indeed in part following up on passing observations made by Haspelmath, this paper aims to show that consideration of a broader range of morphosyntactic features than just the overt marking of recipient and gift leads to a more differentiated picture of argument-structure properties of 'give' in what otherwise seems a very homogeneous area. In particular, many languages show features that indicate a less marked, morphosyntactically more central status of the recipient. Properties to be discussed include the following: a) Differences between full noun phrases and pronouns as object arguments of 'give', as when Maltese has the double object construction with pronoun objects, alongside the indirect object construction elsewhere. b) Verb-object agreement, including the use of resumptive pronouns, which often gives preference to resumptive dative pronouns agreeing with the recipient over resumptive accusative pronouns agreeing with the gift, as in Spanish. c) Passive verb forms, which may give preference to promotion-to-subject of the recipient rather than of the theme, in the indirect object construction (e.g. Japanese) and in the double object construction (e.g. English). d) Constituent order, with the possibility of having the recipient rather than the gift closer to the verb in the double object construction (e.g. English, Mandarin Chinese) and perhaps even in the indirect object construction. e) Stem suppletion according to features of the recipient rather than of the gift, as in Old Basque, Tsez (East Caucasian family), Yukaghir, and Japanese. 12 PATTERNS OF ASYMMETRY IN ARGUMENT STRUCTURE ACROSS LANGUAGES: SOME PRINCIPLES AND PUZZLES JOHN A. HAWKINS University of Southern California & Max Planck Institute for Evolutionarly Anthropology LeipzigMany cross-linguistic generalizations reveal asymmetries between the different arguments of multiargument predicates. The asymmetries are vi...

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“…Nevertheless, I maintain that syntactic roles and the respective coding properties are coupled, at least, in the diachronic perspective. Thus, subjects generally do not tend to lose the ability of triggering verbal agreement but rather to acquire it in the course of time (as witnessed in, inter alia, Allen, 1995;Cole et al, 1980;Falk, 1997). On the other hand, with objects, the reverse is found: objects tend to lose nominative-verb agreement (if they happen to have it) in the course of syntactic canonization, but not to acquire it.…”

Section: Loss Of Coding Subject Properties Theoretical Basesmentioning

confidence: 94%

The so-called possessive perfect in North Russian and the Circum-Baltic area. A diachronic and areal account

Seržant¹

2012

Lingua

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The Acquisition of Subjecthood

Cited by 147 publications

References 2 publications

From Ergative to Accusative

From Ergative to Accusative

Some argument-structure properties of ‘give’ in the languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia

The so-called possessive perfect in North Russian and the Circum-Baltic area. A diachronic and areal account

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