Part of
Subjects in Constructions – Canonical and Non-CanonicalEdited by Marja-Liisa Helasvuo and Tuomas Huumo
[Constructional Approaches to Language 16] 2015
► pp. 205–228
Edited by Marja-Liisa Helasvuo and Tuomas Huumo
[Constructional Approaches to Language 16] 2015
► pp. 205–228
The world is raining
Meteorological predicates and their subjects in a typological perspective
The peculiar semantic properties of meteorological predicates have linguistic
consequences. Some of these consequences concern their subjects, which do not
behave like prototypical subjects do. Meteorological predicates often lack a subject,
and in the languages where they do have subjects they are non-referential,
non-topical, indefinite, inanimate or non-agentive entities. They are typically
either expletive elements or lexical elements referring to the spatial, temporal
or atmospheric background, i.e. elements which would otherwise have been
encoded as adverbial phrases. Although the nominative – or some other kind of
zero marking – and default agreement marking (3rd person, singular number,
neuter gender) are typical of these subjects, the study argues that they display
special behavior which distinguishes them from canonical cases.
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[no author supplied]
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2022. Copyright Page. In Alignment and Alignment Change in the Indo-European Family, ► pp. iv ff.
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