Case-Marking Strategies

Case marking strategies

Two strategies of case marking in natural languages are discussed. These are defined as two violable constraints whose effects are shown to converge in the case of differential object marking but diverge in the case of differential subject marking. The strength of the case bearing arguments will be shown to be of utmost importance for case marking as well as voice alternations. The strength of ...

Case marking and alignment

In (1) the syntactic functions of S (gizona ‘man’ in 1a) and O (mutila ‘boy’ in 1b) are identically coded, while in (2) it is S (muzhchina ‘man’ in 2a) and A (muzhchina in 2b) that are identically coded. That is, the two languages differ in whether S is aligned with A or O. Henceforth we refer to syntactic functions such as A, O, and S as argument roles. Argument structure has to do with the nu...

Verbal Morphology , Case Marking

Case-marking in Estonian pseudopartitives

The examples in (1) and (2) exemplify what I will call PSEUDOPARTITIVES in Estonian. (1) hargi-täisN1 pitchfork-ful põhkuN2 straw.PAR ‘a/the pitchforkful of straw’ (EKSS, entry for hargitäis) (2) parvN1 flock pääsukesiN2 swallow.PL.PAR ‘a/the flock of swallows’ (Nemvalts, 1996:69) Key aspects of the pseudopartitive construction: • One noun (N1) serves a quantifying or measuring role (broadly sp...

Software Case Marking Language Definition

ion Level Link type Possible direction(s) of traversal (Inter-level) IsAllocatedTo both Satisfies both Abstraction (without subtypes) both Implements both Requirements ConflictsWith none Constrains source← target DependsOn source→ target DerivesFrom source→ target Elaborates source→ target IsSimilarTo both MakesPossible source← target Operationalizes source← target Fulfils both InvocationRelati...