The change that never happened: the story of oblique subjects

Abstract

This paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the syntactic status of oblique subject-like NPs in the ‘impersonal’ construction (of the type me-thinks) in Old Germanic. The debate is caused by the lack of canonical subject case marking in such NPs. It has been argued that these NPs are syntactic objects, but we provide evidence for their subject status, as in Modern Icelandic and Faroese. Thus, we argue that the syntactic status of the oblique subject-like NPs has not changed at all from object status to subject status, contra standard claims in the literature. Our evidence stems from Old Icelandic, but the analysis has implications for the other old Germanic languages as well. However, a change from non-canonical to canonical subject case marking (‘Nominative Sickness’) has affected all the Germanic languages to a varying degree.

Semantic and (morpho)syntactic constraints on anticausativization: Evidence from Latin and Old Norse-Icelandic

“…It is a theoretical possibility that the Nominative Active Intransitive variant got so robust, not only because of lack of reflexive pronouns, but also through the canonization of subject marking. Or in other words, the Oblique Active Intransitive may have changed into the Nominative Active Intransitive through Nominative Substitution, a process that has been found in languages irrespective of loss of morphological case (von Seefranz-Montag 1983;1984;Smith 1994;Barðdal and Eythórsson 2003;Eythórsson and Barðdal 2005). There is, for instance, a sporadic tendency in the history of Icelandic for the oblique subjects of such verbs to be replaced by nominative subjects (Eythórsson 2000a(Eythórsson , 2000b(Eythórsson , 2002Barðdal and Eythórsson 2003;Barðdal 2011b), even though the case system of Icelandic has remained intact throughout the Icelandic period, and no loss of case marking is detectable (Barðdal 2001b(Barðdal , 2008).…”

“…It needs to be further investigated, however, whether the rarity of attestation of this structure reflects a change in progress, the gradual emerging of a new strategy for marking anticausatives and how it relates to so-called Nominative Substitution, i.e., the regularization of subject case marking and a change to the nominative canon (Eythórsson 2000a(Eythórsson , 2000b(Eythórsson , 2002Barðdal and Eythórsson 2003;Barðdal 2011b). There is no doubt that there are considerably more predicates in Modern Icelandic than in Old Norse-Icelandic that employ the Nominative Active strategy.…”

Position as a behavioral property of subjects

“…The most widely used coding and behavioral properties from Keenan's Control infinitives are considered to be the most conclusive evidence of subject behavior by many, as the subject argument of the infinitive is left unexpressed under 10 identity with an argument of the matrix verb, which is not a property of objects (cf. Falk 1995;Rögnvaldsson 1996;Moore & Perlmutter 2000;Barðdal 2006;Barðdal & Eythórsson 2003;Eythórsson & Barðdal 2005). However, control infinitives are generally very rare in texts, and they are found even less frequently with oblique subject predicates.…”

“…While there has been extensive work on the status of oblique subject-like arguments in some of the other Indo-European languages (Hock 1990;Rögnvaldsson 25 1991;Rögnvaldsson 1995;Rögnvaldsson 1996;Allen 1995;Kristoffersen 1996;Falk 1997;Faarlund 2001;Barðdal & Eythórsson 2003;Barðdal & Eythórsson 2012;Eythórsson & Barðdal 2005;Fedriani 2014;Ingason, E. F. Sigurðsson & Wallenberg 2011;Danesi 2014;Grillborzer 2014), especially in Germanic, there is next to no work on their syntactic behavior in Old Irish.…”

Referential vs. non-referential null subjects in Middle Norwegian

“…According to e.g. Rögnvaldsson (1995), Haugan (1998), Barðdal & Eythórsson (2003) and Eythórsson & Barðdal (2005), Old Norse had oblique subjects; if that assumption is correct and can be extended to Middle Norwegian, tik is a subject, and there is no null expletive in (16). However, Mørck (1994) and Faarlund (2001Faarlund ( , 2004 Co-occurrences of overt quasi-arguments and null expletives within the same, individual charter can be taken to suggest that quasi-arguments were overtly realised earlier than expletives.…”