Case

As we saw in Chapter 14, case is often described as the grammatical feature that ‘flags’ the grammatical function of a word or phrase within a clause. This view of case is most widespread in descriptions of nominative or accusative case, although some other types of case such as locative or instrumental case (both found in Basque) are more transparently semantic in nature. As we have seen, the grammatical functions subject and object are traditionally viewed as ‘purely grammatical’ notions that cannot be semantically characterised because a wide range of different semantic roles can occur in the subject and object positions. It follows from this view that the types of case that ‘flag’ these functions are also ‘purely grammatical’ features of language, which cannot be semantically characterised but are seen to arise from purely structural factors within the clause. Indeed, in the generative model, nominative and accusative case in English receive a purely configurational characterisation. Nominative case is licensed in the subject position of a finite clause and accusative case is licensed in the complement position of lexical verbs and prepositions.

Correlated and uncorrelated case systems

 Langacker proposes that case, like the grammatical functions subject and object, can be semantically characterised. According to Langacker, there are two types of case system. A correlated system is based on the relative ‘degrees of prominence’ of each of the participants. For example, nominative (subject case) and accusative (object case) in English might be viewed in these terms, where nominative or subject case corresponds to the TR and object or accusative case to the LM. An uncorrelated case system is based on semantic role archetypes rather than grammatical functions. For example, Basque has instrumental case and locative case, which are examples of case marking that rest on semantic roles rather than grammatical functions. In reality, most languages represent some combination of the two systems.

Correlated case systems: a case study

 We focus our discussion here on two examples of correlated cases systems, since these arguably represent a greater challenge to a semantic account of case than uncorrelated systems. Langacker proposes a cognitive account of the typo logical difference between nominative/accusative case systems and ergative/absolutive case systems in terms of how the case system marks the relative degrees of prominence of each of the participants in the clause. Although English has a nominative/accusative case system, this is only evident in the per sonal pronouns, as we have seen. We will therefore illustrate this discussion with a comparison of two languages that mark case on noun phrases headed by common nouns as well as pronouns. These two languages are German, which has a nominative/accusative case system, and Basque, which has an ergative absolutive case system. In order to simplify the comparison, the subject of a transitive verb is labelled A (for AGENT). The object of a transitive verb is labelled O (for object). The subject of an intransitive verb is labelled S (for subject). Clearly, a case system only needs to distinguish A and O (the subject and object of a transitive clause), since S and A cannot co-occur (a clause cannot simultaneously be transitive and intransitive) and S and O do not co-occur (an intransitive clause does not have an object). If a language marks S and A in the same way, but marks O differently, this is a nominative/accusative case system. This is illustrated by the following German examples. Observe that German marks case on the NP by marking determiners and adjectives with case morphemes, rather than the head noun (examples (25) and (26) are both from Tallerman 1998: 154–5).

Like English, the German case system has one type of case for subjects (nominative), regardless of whether the clause is transitive (25b) or intransitive (25a), and another type of case for objects (accusative). In contrast, if a language marks the intransitive subject S and the object O in the same way (absolutive), but marks the transitive subject A differently (ergative), this is an ergative/absolutive system. This is illustrated by the following Basque examples:

As these examples show, Basque is an SOV language. Example (26c) begins with the object because the subject is not expressed in this clause. Like many languages with a rich inflectional system (notice that the AUX word is marked with the person and number of the subject), the subject can be left out of the main clause as long as it can be retrieved from the context. Languages that license implicit subjects in main clauses are often described as pro-drop languages.

According to Langacker (2002: 247), there are two important similarities between the two types of system. Firstly, both systems encode the relative prominence of participants by distinguishing subject and object where these co-occur: in the transitive clause. Secondly, both systems reflect the asymmetry that Langacker characterises in terms of the action chain. The difference between nominative/accusative languages and ergative/absolutive languages, according to Langacker, can be characterised in terms of the ‘starting point’ each case system reflects. A nominative/accusative system ‘starts’ with the energy source (subject), hence both transitive and intransitive subjects are marked in the same way (nominative) and a distinct case is only necessary if a second ‘downstream’ participant is involved. In contrast, an ergative/absolutive language ‘starts’ with the relationship between the verb and its ‘closest’ argument. In an intransitive clause, this is the subject, but in a transitive clause this is the object. Hence, an ergative/absolutive system marks object and intransitive subject with the same case (absolutive), and a distinct case (ergative) is only necessary if a further participant is involved moving ‘outwards’ from the core of the clause. In intuitive terms, then, the nominative/accusative system works ‘from the top down’, while an ergative/absolutive system works ‘from the middle out’. Of course, this account relies upon the assumption that a verb is most closely associated with its object, an idea that is reflected in the traditional partition of the clause into subject and predicate and an idea that remains prominent in most current theories of grammar. For example, derivational or ‘structure building’ generative theories ‘build’ the verb-complement structure before ‘adding’ the subject. As we have seen, Langacker’s (2002: 172, 296) account of compositionality in a prototypical transitive clause reflects a broad agreement with this partition of the clause, despite the non-derivational nature of the Cognitive Grammar model.

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المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Marked coding: the passive construction

Grammatical functions and transitivity

Valence at the clause level

Clauses

An outline of grammatical evolution Introduction

The present volume

Problems

Grammatical morphemes and agreement

Constructional schemas

Composite structure

Prototypical stems and affixes

Semantic autonomy and dependence