scholarly journals German Passives and English Benefactives

Nordlyd ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Vera Lee-Schoenfeld ◽  
Nicholas Twiner
Keyword(s):  
Double Object ◽  
Active Voice ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Theta Role ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Case Feature

In both English benefactive constructions (John baked Mary a cake) and German kriegen/bekommen-passives (Er kriegte einen Stift geschenkt ‘He got a pen gifted’), the theme argument is accusative-marked but has no way of getting structural accusative case. In English benefactive constructions, this is because the beneficiary argument intervenes between the voice head and the theme, and in German kriegen/bekommen-passives, it is because there is no active voice head. This paper proposes that, in both languages, the applicative head introducing the beneficiary/recipient (more generally, the affectee argument), comes with an extra case feature that can license case on the theme argument. In English, this non-canonical accusative case feature comes with the regular applicative head introducing the beneficiary argument. In contrast, in German, it comes with a defective applicative head which introduces the recipient but is unable to assign to it the inherent dative case that normally comes with the Affectee theta-role. The paper offers a unified analysis of English and German double object constructions and also of German werden (‘be’) and kriegen/bekommen (‘get’)-passives.

scholarly journals Explaining Siewierska’s generalization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hallman
Keyword(s):  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Object Construction

AbstractThis article presents an explanation for a cross-linguistic gap observed by Anna Siewierska: morphologically unmarked indirect objects may alternate with prepositional marking in what is sometimes called a ‘dative’ or ‘prepositional-dative’ ditransitive frame, but never with actual dative case marking. ‘Dative’, to the extent it alternates with accusative, is always expressed as a preposition. I show firstly that German, which has a robust dative case paradigm, also displays a double object alternation in which the erstwhile dative DP occurs in a prepositional phrase, meaning both accusative (in English) and dative (in German) indirect objects alternate with prepositional encoding. I construct an analysis in which the the indirect object may be generated as either a DP (which receives dative in German and accusative in English) or a PP in the same theta position. This characterization of the double object alternation does not admit an alternation between dative and accusative case on the indirect object, capturing Siewierska’s generalization. The analysis also extends to ‘symmetric’ passive languages, in which either object in the double object construction can be raised to subject in the passive. Some current perspectives on this phenomenon make such languages exceptions to Siewierska’s generalization, but not the analysis proposed here.

Accusative case in passives

Linguistics ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Goodall
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Standard View ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
Passive Construction ◽  
Chinese And English

Abstract The standard explanation for Ν Ρ movement in the passive construction has been that the N P must move into the nominative position because no accusative case is available. This paper examines the implications for this view of some double-object constructions in Mandarin Chinese and English that are ungrammatical as active clauses but improve significantly as passives. These facts are unexpected under the standard view of passives, but I suggest that they can be explained if we assume that the second object is not licensed for case in the active versions but is able to check accusative case in the passive version, thus arguing that accusative case is available in passive clauses.

The Voice of Cognition: Active and Passive Voice Influence Distance and Construal

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Y. Chan ◽  
Sam J. Maglio
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Active Voice ◽  
Written Word ◽  
The Voice

English passages can be in either the active or passive voice. Relative to the active voice, the passive voice provides a sense of objectivity regarding the events being described. This leads to our hypothesis that passages in the passive voice can increase readers’ psychological distance from the content of the passage, triggering an abstract construal. In five studies with American, Australian, British, and Canadian participants, we find evidence for our propositions, with both paragraphs and sentences in the passive voice increasing readers’ felt temporal, hypothetical, and spatial distance from activities described in the text, which increases their abstraction in a manner that generalizes to unrelated tasks. As such, prose colors how people process information, with the active and passive voice influencing the reader in ways beyond what is stated in the written word.

Syntactic verb-verb compounds in Japanese

2021 ◽  
pp. 103-138
Author(s):  
Hideki Kishimoto
Keyword(s):  
Long Distance ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
Uncontrollable Event ◽  
Compound Verbs ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Syntactic Behavior ◽  
Verb Compounds ◽  
Type 3 ◽  
And Control ◽  
Case Feature

This chapter discusses the syntactic behavior and some notable properties of syntactic V-V compounds in Japanese (Type 3 in the classification of Chapter 2), providing some fresh empirical data. In this chapter, syntactic V-V compounds are seen to be divided into raising and control types. Syntactic V-V compound verbs take distinct embedded structures, depending on whether V2 is classified as a raising or a control verb. V-V compounds allow some, but not all, V2s to undergo long-distance passivization. It is suggested that the difference in applicability of long-distance passivization between raising and control V-V compounds is determined according to whether V2 has an accusative-case feature to license an object, and also that control V-V compounds are not passivizable if they denote an uncontrollable event (even if V2 has an accusative-case feature). Furthermore, syntactic V-V compounds taking sugiru ‘exceed’ as V2 are shown to display a number of unique properties that are not shared with other syntactic compound verbs.

Canonical and reverse predication in the syntax of the active/passive diathesis alternation

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-187
Author(s):  
Marcel den Dikken
Keyword(s):  
External Argument ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Active Voice ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Secondary Predication ◽  
Predication Relation

This chapter defends an analysis of the active/passive alternation sharing with Collins’s smuggling proposal the idea that the participial VP occupies a specifier position above the external argument, but base-generating it in this position rather than moving it there. In both the active and the passive, the VP and the external argument are in a predication structure, with a RELATOR mediating the predication relation. The active voice builds a canonical predication structure, with the VP in the RELATOR’S complement position and the subject of predication as the specifier. In the passive voice, the VP is externally merged in the specifier of the RELATOR and the external argument in its complement. This analysis provides an explanation for obligatory auxiliation, the unavailability of accusative Case for the internal argument, Visser’s Generalization (the ban on personal passivization of subject control verbs), and the restrictions on referential dependencies and depictive secondary predication in passives.

Philological Contributions to Hattian-Hittite Religion (I)

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
Oğuz Soysal
Keyword(s):  
Accusative Case ◽  
The Real ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Divine Name

AbstractIn the first part of the present study the frequent Hittite cult phrase d(GN) aku- / eku- "to drink a deity" is discussed as to whether it should be understood in the accusative or dative sense. The drinking act devoted to divine honor is accompanied chiefly by the accusative case of the deity name. There are also some exceptional cases in which the divine proper name is used in the dative case. In the light of a list of Hattian deities in KBo 21.85+ I 12'-25' it is proposed here that the divine name in the expressiond d(GN) aku- / eku- with ending -n may have been originally constructed in the dative case under influence of Hattian. Since the Hattian dative marker -n is formally the same as the Hittite ending -n for the singular accusative, it is possible that the Hittites had adopted this cult expression in their language in a manner where the divine proper name would function as accusative. This use may have been transformed later into the real "Hittite" accusative in -n.The second part deals with the cult object GIŠhalm/puti- (with other cognate designations) and with its possible connection to GIŠkalmuš-. Materially, these tools appear not to have the same functions, but on the philological level, both words may stem from the same Hattian root halwuutti-.

scholarly journals The structural nature of non-structural case: On passivization and case in Lithuanian

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Einar Freyr Sigurðsson ◽  
Milena Sereikaite ◽  
Marcel Pitteroff
Keyword(s):  
Structural Conversion ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Structure Building ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Structural Nature ◽  
Direct Objects ◽  
Structural Case ◽  
Inherent Case ◽  
The Voice

Dative case on indirect objects (IO) in Lithuanian is preserved under passivization, which is not the case with dative direct objects (DO) of monotransitive verbs, suggesting that the two datives are not alike. Although DAT-to-NOM conversion is taken as an indicator of structural case, we show that DO datives behave differently from DOs bearing structural accusative in that the former exhibit inherent case properties as well (see also Anderson 2015). We develop an account for the contrast between the two datives by using two types of derivational mechanisms: structure-building features, triggering Merge, and probe features, triggering Agree (Heck & Müller 2007; Müller 2010). This study demonstrates that structural vs. non-structural conversion can be dependent on not only how case is assigned but also on the Voice system of a language (in line with Alexiadou et al. 2014). We argue that the DO dative in Lithuanian is in fact non-structural. Even though the result of DAT-to-NOM conversion is structural nominative case, the derivation is different from that of structural ACC-to-NOM conversion.

scholarly journals The abscence of the linker in double object constructions in Nuu

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Collins
Keyword(s):  
Double Object ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Case Marker

The linker in Nluu appears before various types of nominal expressions, but not before the second object in a double object construction. Linkers in Khoisan languages such as +Hoan and Jul'hoansi do appear in this position. I will show that this property of the linker in Nluu is related to the fact that Nluu has a dative Case marker -a which appears after the first object of a DOC, whereas +Hoan and Jul'hoansi do not. 1.

scholarly journals An Analysis of a Noun Phrase in Ichindali

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 906
Author(s):  
Neema Jangstony Kibona
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Ethnic Community ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
The North ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
The Way

Ichindali is one of the Ethnic Community Languages spoken by an increasing population of the Ndali people in Mbeya region. The Ndali people live in southern Tanzania, Mbeya Region. Ileje District has 124,451 speakers in 2012. Ileje is bordered to the North by Mbeya rural and Rungwe district, to the East by Kyela district. Ndali people live in an area which crosses the Tanzania Malawi border. This paper investigates the way noun phrases are formed in Ichindali and the order of their formation (constituents) in this particular language. Therefore the main objectives of this paper were: i. To find out the Criteria for categorizing noun phrase elements in Ichindali. ii. To examine the various kinds of dependents in Ichindali noun phrase. In arriving at these objectives, the writer posed the following questions as a guide: i. What are the criteria relevant in categorizing the dependents of the noun in Ichindali? ii. What kinds of dependents form a noun phrase in Ichindali? A conclusion has been drawn from this work is that, the structure of a noun phrase in Ichindali is N-Det-Mod. An NP can function as a subject, direct or primary objects which is normally expressed in the accusative case, indirect or secondary object in dative case as well as an object of preposition.

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