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Part of
Historical Linguistics 2017: Selected papers from the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, San Antonio, Texas, 31 July – 4 August 2017
Edited by Bridget Drinka
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 350] 2020
► pp. 9–28

Strategies for aligning syntactic roles and case marking with semantic properties

The case of the accusative of respect in ancient Greek

In the present paper, we show that: (1) the accusative of respect, a case marker for inalienable possession in ancient Greek, represents a strategy for aligning syntactic roles and case marking with animacy; (2) this hypothesis can consistently account for a series of issues that remained unsettled; (3) the semantic properties of the predicate involved in the accusative of respect are fundamental to defining its function and specifically govern its distribution. Our analysis comprises Greek literary texts, from Homer to the fifth century B.C.

Keywords: ancient Greek, accusative case, inalienable possession, possessor ascension, syntactic roles, animacy hierarchy, semantic roles, actionality
Article outline
  • 1.The unsettled question of the accusative of respect in ancient Greek
  • 2.A case marker for inalienable possession
    • 2.1Accusative of respect and inalienable possession: Key questions
  • 3.The function and distribution of the accusative of respect: Research questions
  • 4.A strategy for aligning syntactic roles and case marking with animacy
    • 4.1Accusative of respect and double accusative
    • 4.2The noteworthy exception of kin terms
    • 4.3The strange case of an accusative depending on a passive and the lack of double nominative in Homer
  • 5.A case marker for undergoer arguments
    • 5.1A restriction on telic predicates
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Texts and translations
Published online: 9 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.350.01rom
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