Motion Verbs in Old Saxon with the Oblique Subject Construction: A Semantic Analysis

Abstract

An interesting fact about Old Saxon is that certain verbs of motion can occur with a dative pronoun which shows certain properties often considered to be indicative of subject status, making these verbs part of the dative subject construction. The dative marked argument is always animate and usually human. Punctuality and telicity are also often overtly marked in the clause. The dative occurs with verbs of motion in Old Saxon when the participant is salient in the discourse. In some instances, a nominative subject earlier in the discourse can trigger verb agreement, but very often a nominative simply is not present. Additionally, the dative pronoun is in subject position next to the finite verb. Thus the dative with verbs of motion exhibits the subject properties of linear subject position, topicality, animacy, definiteness and discourse salience. Semantic subject properties include volitionality, initiation of action, telicity and punctuality. Our analysis concludes that the dative argument with verbs of motion is related, but not identical, to other non-nominative subjects attested in Old Saxon.

Dative subjects in Germanic

“…In this work, we do not distinguish between the different object patterns of the Dative Subject Construction, as we take these to represent natural alternations, found in languages in general (for the quietus of the DAT-GEN pattern in Icelandic, see Barðdal 2008: ch. 6.2.4, 2009, and for an analysis of DAT-GEN in Old High German and some of the patterns it alternates with, see Dewey and Arnett 2015).…”