Case role

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Case roles, according to the work by Charles J. Fillmore (1967), [1] are the semantic roles of noun phrases (NP) in relation to the syntactic structures that contain these noun phrases. The term case role is most widely used for purely semantic relations, including theta roles and thematic roles, that can be independent of the morpho-syntax. The concept of case roles is related to the larger notion of Case (with a capitalised C), which is defined as a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of semantic or syntactic relationship they bear to their heads. Case traditionally refers to inflectional marking. [2]

Contents

The relationships between nouns and their containing structures are of both syntactic and semantic value. The syntactic positional relationships between forms in sentences vary cross-linguistically and allows grammarians to observe semantic values in these nouns by examining their syntactic values. Using these semantic values gives the base for considering case roles in a specific language. [1]

In addition to its inventory of structural cases, case theory includes a series of lexical cases that are assigned at deep structure in conjunction with theta role assignment. [3] In addition to its relation to Case (case based on syntactic structures), these semantic notions of case role are also closely related to morphological case. [1]

Inventory of case roles

The following list of case roles is frequently distinguished in literature but is not an exhaustive list, as there is no consensus on the universal inventory of roles, nor a universal agreement as to the correct assignment of constituents to roles. [4]

Case RoleDescriptionExample
Patient Fillmore refers to this case role as 'object' or 'objective' and can be described in three ways:
  1. an entity viewed as existing in a state or undergoing change
  2. an entity viewed as located or moving
  3. an entity viewed as affected by an entity


1. The sky is blue.
2. The lion is in the cave.
3. The bird ate the worm.

Agent An entity that performs an activity or brings about a change of stateThe robots assembled the car.
InstrumentThe means by which an activity or change of state is carried outShe squashed the spider with a slipper.
ExperiencerThe creature experiencing an emotion or perceptionThey love music.
Location The position of an entity, referring to both the temporal and spatial roles

The vase is on the table.
or
Canada Day is on a Tuesday.

SourceThe point from which an entity moves or derivesThey got news from home.
DestinationThe point to or towards which an entity moves or is orientedHe turned to the altar and walked towards it.
RecipientA sentient destinationShe gave her spare change to the collectors.
PurposeThe purpose of an activityHe went to the Red Rooster for some take-out.
BeneficiaryThe animate entity on whose behalf an activity is carried outShe did the shopping for her mother.
MannerThe way in which an activity is done or the way in which a change of state takes placeHe did it with great skill.
ExtentThe distance, area or time over which an activity is carried out or over which a state holdsIt lasted the winter.
PossessorThe entity that possesses another entityI saw John's golf clubs.

Early contributions to case role

Roman Jakobson's work on case roles in Russian

In his article on the case system of Russian, Roman Jakobson (1958) closely examines case assignment and argues for a feature decomposition of case on the basis of semantic considerations. [5] Jakobson (1958) proposed a three-feature binary case system for Russian case which includes the following: ±marginal, ±quantifying, and ±ascriptive, where the negative value is considered to be unmarked[ clarification needed ]. The term marginal distinguishes the direct and non-direct cases; only the -marginal cases may occur in subject and object position. Quantifying indicates the relevance of the extent to which the noun is a participant in the event. Ascriptive puts emphasis on directionality. [5]

Jakobson considers cases to be bundles of these three features, which can be assigned to morphological cases:

CaseMarginalQuantifyingAscriptive
Nominative
-
-
-
Accusative
-
-
+
Genitive 1
-
+
+
Genitive 2
-
+
-
Locative 1
+
+
+
Locative 2
+
+
-
Dative
+
-
+
Instrumental
+
-
-

He uses these decomposed case features to account for the case alternations in subject and object position, and argues for how there should be a universal inventory of case roles. [5]

Multiple case roles

There is a theory that multiple case roles can be assigned to noun phrases. [6] The reasons for having more than one case role is due to the differences in the sentences’ semantic effects. [6] Bhat (1997) proposed that the speaker of a language would have the option of assigning any single case role out of the multiple case role alternations available in a given context. [6] This is not done by a transformational rule, but due to the deep structure representations (the core semantic relations of the sentence). [6] 

   Examples   (1a) || John sprayed the wall with paint.   (1b) || John sprayed paint on the wall.

In comparing sentences (1a) and (1b), it demonstrates that the surface structure representation for each sentence (the structure following the phonological form of the sentence) is different. [6] However, in order to account for the meaning distinctions that exist in (1a) and (1b), it has been demonstrated that these distinctions are due to the differences in the deep structures of each sentence and can be resolved by assigning a different case role to the NP. With 'paint' acting as an instrument, and 'the wall' being the location, sentence (1a) might infer that all the paint was used, but that not necessarily all the wall was covered. Sentence (1b) might imply that the whole wall is covered, but that John did not use all the paint he had available to him. [6]

Fillmore's alternative theory

Conversely, Fillmore (1968) suggested that in the case of sentences following the structure of the above examples, the noun phrases are not assigned multiple case roles, but instead retain the same case roles in both sentences (instrument for 'paint', and location for 'wall'). The difference in meaning is attributed to a transformation that takes both identical deep structures and chooses the direct object as it appears in the surface form. [7]

Examples in Kannada

Kannada (a language spoken in India with overt usage of case in its suffixes) affords some good evidence of how multiple case roles can be assigned to NPs in the following two examples: (1) how NPs can be assigned either Object or Location case roles, and (2) how NPs can be assigned either Agent or Experiencer case roles. [6]

Evidence for multiple case roles demonstrated in Kannada: [6] NPs can be assigned either object or location case roles. Evidence is found from the meaning distinctions of exhaustiveness:

(2a)

bekku

cat(NOM)

maravannu

tree(ACC)

hattitu

climbed

bekku maravannu hattitu

cat(NOM) tree(ACC) climbed

"The cat climbed the tree."

(2b)

bekku

cat(NOM)

marakke

tree(DAT)

hattitu

climbed

bekku marakke hattitu

cat(NOM) tree(DAT) climbed

"The cat climbed to the tree."

(2a) implies that the cat climbed the tree from the ground itself, whereas (2b) has no such implication. The common feature of these two uses is that whenever an element occurs as the object case role, it gets the added meaning of being exhaustively affected by the action denoted by the verb as seen in (2a) (like climbing up the tree completely from the ground upwards). No such additional meaning is observed in sentences in which the element has been used as a Location case role (as in 2b).

How NPs can be assigned either agent or experiencer case roles: Evidence found from the meaning distinctions of volition.

(3a)

ra:ju

Raju(NOM)

pa:thavannu

lesson(ACC)

maretidda:ne

has-forgotten

ra:ju pa:thavannu maretidda:ne

Raju(NOM) lesson(ACC) has-forgotten

"Raju has forgotten the lesson."

(3b)

ra:juvige

Raju(DAT)

pa:tha

lesson(NOM)

maretide

forgotten

ra:juvige pa:tha maretide

Raju(DAT) lesson(NOM) forgotten

"The lesson has been forgotten by Raju."

Although both sentences indicate the same event, the meaning difference is due to the fact that in (3a) Raju, as the agent, is considered to have acted volitionally (not making any special effort to retain the lesson in his memory), and is hence held responsible for that event, whereas in (3b) he, being an experiencer, is involved in that event only non-volitionally, and hence one does not hold him responsible for it.

Relating case roles to morphological case and structural Case

A Venn diagram demonstrating how case role (semantic roles) relates to the morphological case, and how morphological case in turn relates to Case (structural case). Relating case roles to morphological case and structural Case.png
A Venn diagram demonstrating how case role (semantic roles) relates to the morphological case, and how morphological case in turn relates to Case (structural case).

Semantic vs. morphological

The semantic category of case (specifically case role) is related to morphological case. Morphological case (such as accusative, ergative, dative, genitive, and sometimes also partitive) reflects the ranking of arguments, while semantic case (such as instrumental, comitative, locative, and directional) encodes a semantic relation between the DP[ clarification needed ] and the governing head. [8] Morphological case is typical of complements and is licensed by structural Case. By contrast, semantic case is typical of adjuncts; it is only licensed by the meaning of the head. [8] From the case roles proposed by Fillmore (1968), [7] it was demonstrated that case roles appeared where the morphological cases of dative, genitive or instrumental appeared:

The following are observations from Sigurðsson [9] on the "case-semantics" in case-languages demonstrating how morphological case is not blind to semantics:

Morphological vs. structural

Morphological case is related to structural Case (based on syntax) in the following ways:

Structural Case is a condition for arguments that originates from a relational head (e.g. verb), while morphological case is a property that depends on the NP or DP complement. [8] The relationship between morphological case and structural case is evident in how morphological case is subject to case agreement whereby the morphological case appearing on a DP must be licensed by the syntactic context of the DP. [8]

In much of the transformational grammar literature, morphological cases are viewed as determined by the syntactic configuration. [10] The accusative case is assigned through a structural relation between the verbal head and its complement. [10] For example, the direct complement of a verb is assigned accusative, irrespective of any other properties that it might have. [10] It must be acknowledged that it is not the accusative alone that is structural, rather the specifier of a NP is in the genitive in many languages, and so is the direct object of a nominalized verb. [10]

Morphological case

Linguistic typology of morphological case

Case can be further divided into two categories: grammatical cases and semantic cases. Examples of grammatical cases are nominative case, accusative, dative, and ergative. These typically code core grammatical relations which are semantically dependent on the verb, such as subject and object. Semantic (or adverbial) cases are instrumental, comitative, and locative cases. These are semantically richer and less dependent on the verb. There exist cases, such as dative, that have both semantic and grammatical case features. [11]

Eight commonly seen cases (Indo-European case):

CaseCharacteristics
Nominative
  • Indicates the subject, as the specifier of a finite verb [12]
  • Recent research indicates nominative is distinct from ergative case [3] : p.2 
  • Some research indicates nominative is synonymous to ergative case [3] : p.4 
Accusative
  • Indicates the direct object, as the complement of a transitive verb [12]
  • Lexical case associated with themes
Ex. The teacher scolded us.
Dative
  • Indicates the indirect object of a verb
  • Lexical case associated with goals/experiences
Ex. The banker handed us a pamphlet.
Ex. The banker handed a check to us.
Instrumental
  • Indicates an object used in performing an action
Ex. We cleaned the table with a wipe.
Ex. Written by hand.
Locative
  • Indicates a location
Ex. We live in Canada.
Vocative
  • Indicates an addressee
Ex. Becky, are you mad?
Ex. Hello, Maria!
Genitive
  • Corresponds to English’s possessive case and preposition of, indicates the possessor of another noun
Ablative
  • Indicates movement from something, or cause

Precise description of the above cases vary cross-linguistically.

Ergative case

It has been suggested that the lexical case associated with agents is the ergative (ERG) lexical case: it identifies the noun as a subject of a transitive verb in languages that allow ergative case. The correlation demonstrated between the ergative case and the theta role of the agent is not a perfect correlation: It is as closely correlated as the relationship between the dative case and the theta role goals/ experiencers. [3] : p.3  There are two types of ergative languages: languages that allow ergative subjects in intransitive clauses and those that prohibit them. [3] : p.19 

There can be a distinction made between ergative and accusative type languages with respect to the type of subject and object markings they will display. [13] This distinction is characterized by the type of clauses a language allows, such as ergative, absolutive, accusative, and nominative. The distinction made between language type and clause type is illustrated in the table below: [13] : p.158 

Clause typeLanguage type
ErgativeAccusative
TransitiveErg-AbsNom-Acc
IntransitiveAbsNom

Case assignment

The typological differences among languages have been shown to be the consequence of differences in whether ergative, dative, or other individual case assignment is optional or obligatory in a language (although, the ergative-accusative case pattern appears to be universally blocked). [3]

The class of verbs that mark their subjects with a particular lexical dative case is similar across languages, but the inclusion in this verb class is not completely predictable. Lexical cases such as nominative usually mark predictable theta roles, but there is a substantial amount of characteristic behaviour involved indicating that a verb's ability to assign a lexical case to one of its arguments must be specified in that verb's lexical entry. [3] : p.11  Once a verb marks its subject with a given lexical case, such as nominative, that verb cannot assign the structural accusative case to its object. [3] : p.20 

Example of transliterated Japanese morphologically overt case assignment. The dative particle '-ni' assigns a recipient case role to the NP 'neko', and the accusative particle '-o' assigns a theme case role to the NP 'sakana'. Japanese case assignment.png
Example of transliterated Japanese morphologically overt case assignment. The dative particle '-ni' assigns a recipient case role to the NP 'neko', and the accusative particle '-o' assigns a theme case role to the NP 'sakana'.

Morphologically overt case assignment

In languages with case marking of explicit morphology, any nominal that is morphologically capable of showing case morphology is obligated to do so. This observation can be stated explicitly by what is referred to as the Case Filter. [12] Case Filter can be further described as being an abstract Case hypothesis that stipulates all lexical noun phrases are assigned a specific Case regardless if this Case manifests at the surface level: If this lexical NP does not have a Case marking at surface structure, then the sentence that contains it is considered ungrammatical. [12] [14] Case theory includes an inventory of structural Case and a series of lexical cases that are assigned (in all languages) at the level of the deep structure in conjunction with theta role assignment. [3] : p.3 

Languages such as Russian and Japanese follow a similar mechanism of case assignment as that seen in Latin. Russian is like Latin, in that it does have genitive and dative case that is assigned by the N (noun) and A (adjective or adverb). In Russian for example, most nouns show overt case morphology as does Latin, but there is also a productive class of indeclinable nouns. [15] : p.3  These indeclinable nouns are not able to receive case morphology. [15] : p.3  Examples from languages exhibiting morphologically overt case marking indicate that there are rules of case assignment present in the grammar of a language. To account for this, rules can be generated as support. For example, support accounting for accusative cases in Latin-type case-marked languages could be presented as: [15]

(i)V (verb) and P (preposition) assign accusative case to an NP complement

Accusative case is assigned to the complements of V and in some instances P

(ii)N (noun) and A (adverb/adjective) do not assign accusative case (to an NP complement)

Accusative case is not found on the complement of either N or A

Application of these accusative case assignment rules can be seen in the following examples: [15]

(4a)
Complement to V (accusative)

VP

 

scripsit

wrote

libr-um

book-ACC

VP scripsit libr-um

{} wrote book-ACC

(4b)
Complement to P (accusative)

PP

 

ad

to

Hispani-am

Spain-ACC

PP ad Hispani-am

{} to Spain-ACC

For the morphologically rich case language of Latin, there are seven cases for Latin nouns. The following table demonstrates Latin case morphology assignment for a masculine noun somnus, meaning 'sleep'. [16]

CaseSingular formPlural form
Nominative
nominativus
somnussomni
Accusative
accusativus
somnumsomnos
Genitive
genitivus
somnisomnorum
Dative
dativus
somnosomnis
Ablative
ablativus
somnosomnis
Locative
locativus
somnisomnis
Vocative
vocativus
somnesomni

Modern German

In modern German, all noun phrases show case forms with case generally being marked on the determiner. However, for the genitive form German marks the noun with a morphologically overt case form (this case form is retained on noun phrases in modern English, surfacing as -'s). [14] : p.148  The following table illustrates the masculine case forms of German. [14] : p.148 

Case"the man""he"
Nominative der Manner (he)
Accusative den Mannihn (him)
Dative dem Mannihm ((to) him)
Genitive des Mannessein (his)

Case hierarchy

Schematic representation of nominative-accusative alignment. Subject of intransitive verb (S) and subject of transitive verb (A) are treated similarly while object of transitive verb (O or P) is treated differently. Accusative alignment.svg
Schematic representation of nominative-accusative alignment. Subject of intransitive verb (S) and subject of transitive verb (A) are treated similarly while object of transitive verb (O or P) is treated differently.
Schematic representation of ergative-absolutive alignment. Subject of intransitive verb (S) and object of transitive verb (O or P) are treated similarly while subject of transitive verb (A) is treated differently. Ergative alignment.svg
Schematic representation of ergative-absolutive alignment. Subject of intransitive verb (S) and object of transitive verb (O or P) are treated similarly while subject of transitive verb (A) is treated differently.

As discussed in linguistic typology of morphological case, there can be a number of cases found within a single language. In a sample of case systems, they appear in a particular order and a hierarchy emerges. This specific ordering is called the case hierarchy.

Nominative/Absolutive → Accusative/Ergative → Genitive → Dative → Ablative/Instrumental → Other oblique arguments [17]

This hierarchy is to be interpreted as follows: If a language has a case that is listed on the hierarchy, it will usually have at least one case from each position to the left. If a language has a dative case, it will have a genitive (position to the left), an accusative or ergative case or both, and a nominative. [17]

While the case hierarchy holds for many languages, it is not universally valid. Some languages may lack one of the above categories or may collapse categories into one hierarchy position. [18] There are times when none of the cases in one system will correspond with any of the cases in the other system. For example, the dative in Ancient Greek does not correspond closely with the dative of Latin. So when comparing cases across languages, the functions of a particular case need to be considered, rather than the labels the language has assigned. [17]

Examples of two case and three case systems within the case hierarchy

The hierarchy predicts that it is possible for a language to only have two cases. There are a number of languages that have a two-case system, such as Chemeheuvi, Kabardian, as well as in Iranian languages. Chemeheuvi is a language of the Numic branch of Uto-Aztecan family which has a nominative-oblique system. Yagnobi, an Iranian language, has both an accusative and ergative case. [17]

Semitic languages, Nubian languages, Modern Greek operate with a three-case systems, with a nominative, accusative, and genitive/oblique case. [17]

Structural Case

Examples of Structural Case in English

Morphological Case is the surface Case form which is assigned to either a noun phrase or a pronoun phrase depending on its surface position within a sentence. [14] : p.157  English case morphology is very sparse or in some instances, non-existent. The distribution of nominals in languages such as English, where there is a lack of case morphology, is governed by the same precise laws that also regulate nominative and accusative case in morphologically overt case-marked languages such as Latin and Russian. [15] For example the distribution of accusative case:

Accusative case assignment: [15] : p.4 
α assigns accusative case to β only if:
iii. α is V or P (not N or A); and
iv. β is the complement of α

In English, the object of a noun phrase is assigned a Case by the closest c-commanding V (verb) or P (preposition) head, which is usually the verb or preposition that selects it as a complement. Similarly, the subject of a noun phrase is assigned Case from the finite tense head, T. The subject of a finite clause in English is nominative. As seen in English with sentences in passive form, the finite T is the head that assigns the nominative Case to the noun phrase (subject position); the closest noun phrase that T (tense head) c-commands is attracted to the empty specifier position of the tense phrase. [14] : p.149  This movement is a local specifier-to-specifier movement, satisfying Case requirements at the deep-structure level. Any sentence in English that surfaces with a noun phrase not containing Case, is a violation of the Case Filter and thus is said to 'crash' (determined to be ungrammatical). [14] : p.149 

NP complements in English [15] : p.2 Examples [15] : p.2 
(5a)V and P allow an NP complement.[VP wrote the book]

[PP to Spain]

(5b)N and A do not allow an NP complement.*[NP love liberty]

[*AP free luxuries]

Although English does not have non-zero case morphology, except with respect to personal pronouns, it satisfies the Case Filter. The phenomenon of phonologically zero case morphology is found in languages where the presence of a rich case system is not in doubt. English has an abstract or non-overt variant of case. For example, accusative case may be assigned to a nominal complement of V (verb) or P (preposition) by either V (verb) or P (preposition), but these complements receiving case show no overt morphology reflecting this process. [15] : p.3  English lacks formal cases such as vocative case and ablative case (which can be assigned to nominals); complements to the heads assigning case will not receive an abstract marking of case, and will be excluded by the case filter. [15] : p.3 

Differences between English and Latin [15] : p.2 Similarities between English and Latin [15] : p.2 
(6a)Case morphology in English is phonologically zero (excluding personal pronouns)English has accusative case, but not dative and ablative like Latin
(6b)English allows nominal complements in the same contexts Latin assigns accusative caseEnglish does not allow bare nominal complements in the same locations that Latin disallows accusative case

Pronouns in English, however, change forms when they change case. These changes are clearly seen with personal pronouns for example: first person, second person, and third person are represented as 'I', 'you', and 'he' or 'she', respectively. Subjects of active voice sentences typically in English take on the nominative Case and objects the accusative Case. [14] : p.148 

Personal pronouns in English can be classified into three Case categories:

CaseUsed forExample
Nominative Subjective pronouns: I, he, she, we, they

Example: "They want an A"

Accusative
  • The direct or indirect object of a verb
  • The object of a preposition (in some languages)
  • Sometimes for the complement of a copula
  • ACC is marked on the noun that is having something done to it
  • Syntactic function: designates the immediate object of an action
 Object pronouns: me, him, her, us, them

Example: "The teacher scolded us"

Genitive
  • GEN marks the grammatical possessor
  • GEN marking for the possessor can be seen as -'s and as possessive pronouns
 Possessive pronouns: my/mine, his, her(s), our(s), your(s), their(s) [14] : p.148 

Example: "That is our pen"

English has case forms for pronouns for genitive, accusative, and nominative cases. Conversely, English has only genitive case forms for 'full noun phrases' (or determiner phrases): For example, "John's blue cat" is assigned genitive case. [14] : p.148  Full noun phrases cannot be assigned accusative or nominative case. The possessive marking -'s as a case ending attaches to the end of a noun phrase, not necessarily to the head noun itself.

Example: English Noun Phrase Marked with Genitive Case [14] : p.148 

[NP [NP The boy] -'sposs ball]

It is a question of present-day research, why is it that with pronouns in English, Case marking is preserved? A proposed answer has been that since pronouns are a closed category and don't partake in productive morphology, then they are in a way "memorized" by speakers of English. [14] : p.149  The fact that they may be just memorized forms suggests that there is no significant reason for why members of this category should undergo a drastic change, losing morphologically overt Case marking. Considering this argument, why then do noun phrases receive genitive Case marking in English? The notion of abstract Case marking on all noun phrases can help answer this question: All noun phrases undergo Case marking assignment but this is not always phonetically realized at the surface structure (the exception to surfacing of this morphological case is the possessive form -'s). [14] : p.149 

There is a phenomenon in English known as exceptional case-marking (ECM), [15] : p.10  which makes it evident that accusative case is not necessarily assigned to the complement of the assigner. The following example is intended to demonstrate that case can be assigned as long as there is no barrier that intervenes, and given that there is no nominal closer in proximity to the assigner than the assignee. [15] : p.10  For example (* indicates an ungrammaticality): [15] : p.10 

Examples
(7a)Mary believes [Sue to have read the book].
(7b)*Mary's belief [Sue to have read the book].
(7c)Sue was believed [_ to have read the book].

Debate about case role

There have been arguments made for case role to be considered a universal in language, for several reasons. In previous studies, primarily during the early 20th century, where case role in languages was considered using Latin or Greek classification, it was found that there were difficulties in approaching other languages such as Aleut or Thai. [1] These methods involved illustrating semantic relationships of given case forms and did not come from a primarily syntactical standpoint. Case role in Latin and Greek classifications tended to neglect nominative case as well, and instead focused on creating different semantic classes for other cases, such as the dative of possession. [1]

Because there have been several such problems analyzing case role cross-linguistically when using one language as a standard, it is not common practice to take traditional Latin or Greek classifications. Instead, the particular languages' syntactic structure forms the base for analyzing semantic value and case role in that language. [1]

There are still questions regarding case morphology. One approach to defining case morphology is to say that it is the presence of some special morphology, the shape of which has a correlation with a specific syntactic position. [15] : p.1  Decades of past research support this being a particular cross-linguistic property specific to nominals. When discussing case features, it is commonly stated that they have no associated semantic interpretation, regardless of their syntactic position. [15] : p.14  An early perspective taken on case was the initial suggestion by French linguist Jean-Roger Vergnaud that the grammar of case is a cross-linguistic feature, central to the syntax of all languages and that it does not just apply to languages with a rich case morphology, such as Latin. Vergnaud stipulated that any nominal that is morphologically able to show case morphology is required and must do so. This observation was explicitly stated above as being the definition of Case Filter. [15] : p.3  A second perspective on Case is Chomsky's Minimalist conjectures. There are many fundamental questions regarding case role, such as the reason why case should even exist, that are not yet accompanied by substantive answers. This indicates that research on case role remains still as a "work in progress". [15] : p.19 

See also

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In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but are not limited to direct objects, indirect objects, and arguments of adpositions ; the latter are more accurately termed oblique arguments, thus including other arguments not covered by core grammatical roles, such as those governed by case morphology or relational nouns . In ergative-absolutive languages, for example most Australian Aboriginal languages, the term "subject" is ambiguous, and thus the term "agent" is often used instead to contrast with "object", such that basic word order is often spoken of in terms such as Agent-Object-Verb (AOV) instead of Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). Topic-prominent languages, such as Mandarin, focus their grammars less on the subject-object or agent-object dichotomies but rather on the pragmatic dichotomy of topic and comment.

In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the grammatical relationship between arguments—specifically, between the two arguments of transitive verbs like the dog chased the cat, and the single argument of intransitive verbs like the cat ran away. English has a subject, which merges the more active argument of transitive verbs with the argument of intransitive verbs, leaving the object distinct; other languages may have different strategies, or, rarely, make no distinction at all. Distinctions may be made morphologically, syntactically, or both.

In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the single argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb. Examples include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, and certain Indo-European languages. It has also been attributed to the Semitic modern Aramaic languages. Ergative languages are classified into two groups: those that are morphologically ergative but syntactically behave as accusative and those that, on top of being ergative morphologically, also show ergativity in syntax. No language has been recorded in which both the morphological and syntactical ergative are present. Languages that belong to the former group are more numerous than those to the latter. Dyirbal is said to be the only representative of syntactic ergativity, yet it displays accusative alignment with certain pronouns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nominative–accusative alignment</span> Concept of sentence structure in linguistics

In linguistic typology, nominative–accusative alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which subjects of intransitive verbs are treated like subjects of transitive verbs, and are distinguished from objects of transitive verbs in basic clause constructions. Nominative–accusative alignment can be coded by case-marking, verb agreement and/or word order. It has a wide global distribution and is the most common alignment system among the world's languages. Languages with nominative–accusative alignment are commonly called nominative–accusative languages.

Suffixaufnahme, also known as case stacking, is a linguistic phenomenon used in forming a genitive construction, whereby prototypically a genitive noun agrees with its head noun. The term Suffixaufnahme itself is literally translated as "taking up of suffixes", which can be interpreted as the identical case marking of different but referentially-related phrases, with the presumption that nominal phrases possess a flat or non-configurational syntax. Across syntactic theories, case is seen as a bundle of features, and case agreement as the identity of case features. It was first recognized in Old Georgian and some other Caucasian and ancient Middle Eastern languages as well as many Australian languages, and almost invariably coincides with agglutinativity.

Warrongo is an Australian Aboriginal language, one of the dozen languages of the Maric branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. It was formerly spoken by the Warrongo people in the area around Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Its last native speaker was Alf Palmer, who died in 1981.

In linguistic typology, marked nominative alignment is an unusual type of morphosyntactic alignment similar to, and often considered a subtype of, a nominative–accusative alignment. In a prototypical nominative–accusative language with a grammatical case system like Latin, the object of a verb is marked for accusative case, and the subject of the verb may or may not be marked for nominative case. The nominative, whether or not it is marked morphologically, is also used as the citation form of the noun. In a marked nominative system, on the other hand, it is the nominative case alone that is usually marked morphologically, and it is the unmarked accusative case that is used as the citation form of the noun. The unmarked accusative is typically also used with a wide range of other functions that are associated with the nominative in nominative-accusative languages; they often include the subject complement and a subject moved to a more prominent place in the sentence in order to express topic or focus.

Standard Romanian shares largely the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving varieties of Eastern Romance, namely Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian.

In linguistics, a grammatical category or grammatical feature is a property of items within the grammar of a language. Within each category there are two or more possible values, which are normally mutually exclusive. Frequently encountered grammatical categories include:

Georgian grammar has many distinctive and extremely complex features, such as split ergativity and a polypersonal verb agreement system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grammatical relation</span>

In linguistics, grammatical relations are functional relationships between constituents in a clause. The standard examples of grammatical functions from traditional grammar are subject, direct object, and indirect object. In recent times, the syntactic functions, typified by the traditional categories of subject and object, have assumed an important role in linguistic theorizing, within a variety of approaches ranging from generative grammar to functional and cognitive theories. Many modern theories of grammar are likely to acknowledge numerous further types of grammatical relations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindustani grammar</span> Grammatical features of the Hindustani lingua franca

Hindustani, the lingua franca of Northern India and Pakistan, has two standardised registers: Hindi and Urdu. Grammatical differences between the two standards are minor but each uses its own script: Hindi uses Devanagari while Urdu uses an extended form of the Perso-Arabic script, typically in the Nastaʿlīq style.

In linguistics, the term nominal refers to a category used to group together nouns and adjectives based on shared properties. The motivation for nominal grouping is that in many languages nouns and adjectives share a number of morphological and syntactic properties. The systems used in such languages to show agreement can be classified broadly as gender systems, noun class systems or case marking, classifier systems, and mixed systems. Typically an affix related to the noun appears attached to the other parts of speech within a sentence to create agreement. Such morphological agreement usually occurs in parts within the noun phrase, such as determiners and adjectives. Languages with overt nominal agreement vary in how and to what extent agreement is required.

In linguistics, volition is a concept that distinguishes whether the subject, or agent of a particular sentence intended an action or not. Simply, it is the intentional or unintentional nature of an action. Volition concerns the idea of control and for the purposes outside of psychology and cognitive science, is considered the same as intention in linguistics. Volition can then be expressed in a given language using a variety of possible methods. These sentence forms usually indicate that a given action has been done intentionally, or willingly. There are various ways of marking volition cross-linguistically. When using verbs of volition in English, like "want" or "prefer", these verbs are not expressly marked. Other languages handle this with affixes, while others have complex structural consequences of volitional or non-volitional encoding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inflection</span> Process of word formation

In linguistic morphology, inflection is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and definiteness. The inflection of verbs is called conjugation, while the inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc. can be called declension.

In generative linguistics, Burzio's generalization is the observation that a verb can assign a theta role to its subject position if and only if it can assign an accusative case to its object. Accordingly, if a verb does not assign a theta role to its subject, then it does not assign accusative case to its object. The generalization is named after Italian linguist Luigi Burzio, based on work published in the 1980s, but the seeds of the idea are found in earlier scholarship. The generalization can be logically written in the following equation: 

    θ ↔ A  Where: θ = Subject Theta Role  A = Accusative Case

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fillmore, Charles J. (April 1967). "The case for case". Proceedings of the Texas Symposium, on Language Universals.
  2. ↑ Blake, Barry J. (2001). Case. Port Chester, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780511154249.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Woolford, Ellen (1997). "Four-way case systems: Ergative, nominative, objective and accusative". Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. 15 (1): 181–227. doi:10.1023/A:1005796113097. S2CID   169330717.
  4. ↑ Blake, Barry J. (1994). Case (1. publ., repr. ed.). Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. pp. 67–71. ISBN   0-521-44114-5.
  5. 1 2 3 Jakobson, R.O. "Contribution to the General Theory of Case: General Meanings of the Russian Cases". Gesamtbedeutung der Russischen Kasus: Beitrag zur Allgemeinen Kasuslehre. In L.R. Waugh & H. Morris (eds.): 59–103.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Bhat, D. N. S. (1997). "Multiple case roles". Lingua. 42 (4): 365–377. doi:10.1016/0024-3841(77)90105-X.
  7. 1 2 Fillmore, Charles, J. (1968). "The case for case". Universals in Linguistic Theory: 1–88.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. 1 2 3 4 Wunderlich, D; R. Lakämper (2001). "On the interaction of structural and semantic case" (PDF). Lingua. 111 (4–7): 377–418. doi:10.1016/s0024-3841(00)00040-1.
  9. ↑ Sigurðsson, H.A. (2003). "Case: abstract vs. morphological". New Perspectives on Case Theory. In E. Brandern & Zinsmeister (Ed.): 223–268.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Kracht, M (1999). "Case at the syntax/semantics interface". The Relationship Between Syntax and Semantics in the Analysis of Linguistic Structure. Proceedings from the Helsinki Symposium.
  11. ↑ Kittilä, S, Västi, K., & Ylikoski, J. (2011). Case, animacy, and semantic roles. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. 1 2 3 4 Carnie, Andrew (2013). Syntax: A Generative Introduction. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 335–342. ISBN   978-0-470-65531-3.
  13. 1 2 Butt, Mariam; King T.H. (2004). "The Status of Case": 153–198.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Sobin, Nicholas (2011). Syntactic analysis: The basics. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 157.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Torrego, Esther. The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism. p. 13.
  16. ↑ Mathews, Peter H. (1972). "Inflectional morphology: A theoretical study based on aspects of Latin verb conjugation". CUP Archive. 6.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 Blake, Barry J. (1992). "The case hierarchy". La Trobe Working Papers in Linguistics. 5.
  18. ↑ Jensen, J.T (1983). Case and thematic role in Latin: Evidence from passive constructions. Indiana University Linguistics Club.
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