Non-canonical case marking on subjects in Russian and Lithuanian
An interface approach
In case-marking languages with nominative-accusative alignment the subject of a sentence is usually marked by
nominative case. In some of these languages, however, the subject of a number of verbs is either consistently or alternately
marked by another, non-nominative case. Such non-canonical case marking has often been approached in the linguistic literature as
a phenomenon at the interface between syntax and semantics. Yet the predictions of this kind of approach seem more probabilistic
than regular. This paper offers a new perspective to analyse the phenomenon, which encompasses the role of information structure
in case marking. Drawing on
Silverstein’s (1976) theory of differential subject marking
and
Dalrymple & Nikolaeva’s (2011) approach to differential object marking, it is
argued that non-canonically case-marked subjects can be better analysed as instances of either non-topical
subjects or subjects lacking one or more semantic features typical of topicality. The approach outlined in the paper is tested on a number
of constructions in Russian and Lithuanian. It is shown how, in both languages, the analysed instances of non-canonically
case-marked subjects exhibit a complex interplay among grammatical, semantic and discourse-pragmatic factors.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Differential subject marking
- 3.DSM and its semantic features
- 4.The proposal
- 5.The data
- 6.Discussion and some speculations
- 7.Conclusion
- Notes
-
References