Lexical vs. structural case: a false dichotomy

Abstract

Abstract:This article takes issue with the two dichotomies of structural vs. lexical case and thematic vs. idiosyncratic case, on the basis of their predictions on: a) synchronic productivity, b) language change, and c) language acquisition. It is shown here that these predictions are not borne out in Icelandic. In fact, productivity data from Icelandic suggest that accusative objects to new verbs are assigned lexically and not structurally. Another problem is presented by different changes in case marking in the history of the Germanic languages, changes that can only be captured by two complementary approaches to structural case, which in turn severely undermines the general explanatory power of this concept. It turns out, moreover, that the case preservation property of lexical case, as opposed to structural case, in passives and raising-to-object constructions, is a construction-specific property, not generalizable to the language as a whole. An alternative approach is sketched in terms of a usage-based construction grammar where all case marking of core arguments in Icelandic is regarded as lexical, i.e. word-bound, and modeled in terms of lexicality-schematicity hierarchies which capture verb-specific idiosyncrasies, higher-level generalizations, as well as the default status effect found for the Nom-Acc construction.

Weak Dative Case In Norwegian Dialect Syntax

“…Interestingly, a conclusion that is compatible with this line of thought is reached in Barðdal (2010:30) on the basis of Icelandic data. Thus, Barðdal states the following: “[T]he data […] suggest that the assignment of accusative case to objects is also tied to specific lexical entries, and hence that accusative objects are also assigned case lexically, exactly like dative objects.”Svenonius (2002) takes a similar approch.…”

The rise of Dative Substitution in the history of Icelandic: A diachronic construction grammar account

“…The second term, thematic, implies that the case marking is motivated by a discernable lexical semantic class of verbs, whatever that class may be (cf. Barðdal, 2011). I have shown here that accusative case marking of subjects in Icelandic is also thematic in the sense that it targets specific lexical semantic classes of verbs, and hence that the term idiosyncratic is a misnomer in this context, again reflecting the misconception that rules must entail productivity and lack of rules entails lack of productivity.…”

“…That is, subjects of verbs denoting Landscape and Nature are analyzed as themes by Jónsson. For a critical discussion and a rejection of the dichotomies between structural and lexical case and between thematic and idiosyncratic case, see Barðdal (2011). I will return to Nominative Substitution in Section 4, where I refute Jónsson's (2003) analysis.…”

Radical Construction Grammar

“…However, any analysis committed to a particular set of building blocks is forced to devise an essentially ad hoc explanation for the distibution patterns that do not match those of the constructions used to define the building blocks (see Croft 2005Croft , 2009 for critiques of crosslinguistic analyses and Croft 2007a, 2010a for critiques of a single-language analysis). essentially argues that the building blocks must be different for every language (see also Barðdal 2011). While this is correct, within-language variation indicates that the "building blocks" must actually be different for every construction in a single language.…”