Universität zu Köln

Le Mair, Esther, Johnson, Cynthia A., Frotscher, Michael, Eythorsson, Thorhallur and Barddal, Johanna (2017). Position as a behavioral property of subjects The case of Old Irish. Indoger. Forsch., 122 (1). S. 111 - 142. BERLIN: WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH. ISSN 1613-0405

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Abstract

A subject analysis of oblique subject-like arguments remains controversial even across modern languages where the available data are not finite: while such arguments are considered syntactic subjects in Icelandic, they have more often been analyzed as objects in Lithuanian, for example. This issue has been left relatively neglected for the ancient Indo-European languages outside of Sanskrit (Hock 1990), Gothic (Bar(sic)dal & Eythorsson 2012), and Ancient Greek (Danesi 2015). In this article, we address the status of oblique subject-like arguments in Old Irish, whose strict word-order enables us to compare the position (relative to the verb and other arguments) of nominative subject arguments of the canonical type to oblique subject-like arguments. We first establish a baseline for neutral word-order of nominative subjects and accusative objects and then compare their distribution to that of oblique subject-like arguments under two conditions: i) on a subject analysis and ii) on an object analysis. The word-order distribution differs significantly across the two contexts when the oblique arguments are analyzed as syntactic objects, but not when they are analyzed as syntactic subjects. These findings add to the growing evidence that oblique subject-like arguments should be analyzed as syntactic subjects, although their coding properties are non-canonical.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Le Mair, Esther UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Johnson, Cynthia A. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Frotscher, Michael UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Eythorsson, Thorhallur UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Barddal, Johanna UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-218463
DOI:	10.1515/if-2017-0006
Journal or Publication Title:	Indoger. Forsch.
Volume:	122
Number:	1
Page Range:	S. 111 - 142
Date:	2017
Publisher:	WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH
Place of Publication:	BERLIN
ISSN:	1613-0405
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language CONSTRUCTIONS; MARKING Multiple languages Linguistics; Language & Linguistics Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/21846