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Linguistics
Department
Stanford
University |
Stanford
Humanities Center
Mellon
Foundation
Graduate
Research Workshop Program
Stanford
Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop:
THE
CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING
SemFest, March 14, CSLI
9:00-9:30
Ashwini Deo
Three classes of dative subjects in Marathi
Three Classes of Dative Subjects in Marathi
The diachronic emergence of dative `experiencer' subjects in the New
Indo Aryan language Marathi is a result of independent shifts in the
lexical semantics and argument structure of predicates and case marking of
arguments. I
provide a historical account of these
shifts and demonstrate that they give rise to three distinct classes of
dative subject verbs. I argue that these diachronic classes are
reflected in differences in the synchronic
syntactic behavior of these verbs
and that disagreements within the literature on subjecthood properties of
dative subjects in
Marathi result from a failure to
recognize them. A comparison of Sanskrit and Marathi yields the
following classes:
a) shine predicates: Sanskrit intransitives with an internal
theme argument undergo a change in lexical semantics to license
an additional experiencer argument marked in the dative.
For instance, the Sanskrit intransitive verb _bhaas_ `shine' undergoes a
semantic
shift to mean `appear' with an experiencer and a theme argument.
The shine class thus involves a shift
in both verbal semantics and argument structure.
b)know predicates: These are Sanskrit transitive verbs with a
nominative-accusative case marking pattern. In Marathi, the case
marking on the subject changes from nominative to dative. This
shift in argument realization begins in Old Marathi and is
extended verb by verb through the modern language. For instance,
the Sanskrit verb _sam-jnaa_ `know' has nominative subjects, and
is cognate to the Marathi verb _samaj_ `understand' which
licenses a dative subject.
c) burn predicates:} These are transitive verbs whose patients
are reanalyzed as experiencers following a change in their verbal
semantics. For instance,
the Sanskrit verb _dah_ burn undergoes a shift to mean `harass' in
Marathi. This change in lexical semantics allows for the patient
to be reanalyzed as a dative experiencer.
The recognition of these classes also resolves a contradiction in
the literature about the subjecthood properties of dative arguments
(Pandharipande 1990; Joshi 1993; Rosen \& Wali 1989).
Diagnostics such as present participle formation and causativization have
been used
to argue
both for and
against the subjecthood of dative arguments by lumping together these
heterogeneous classes of verbs
under a
single `dative-subject verb' class.
For instance, Pandharipande
(1990) claims that
the dative arguments in experiencer predicates are not subjects on the
grounds that present
participles do not modify dative arguments. Joshi (1993), on the other
hand, claims that they
do. This contradiction results from the application of the diagnostic to
distinct subclasses of dative
subject verbs. The subclass of know predicates form participles
which may modify the dative argument, while the other subclasses
don't. Pandharipande's arguments depend on the participial form
of a verb that belongs to the shine class (examples in 1), while
Joshi's argument hinges on the participial form of a verb from
the know class (examples in 2).
The classification I propose is not only historically justified
but grounded in synchronic differences in the lexical semantics
of these verb classes. Verbs of the burn class have a causative
event structure (cf. object experiencer verbs) while know
predicates are similar to subject experiencer verbs. These
semantic patterns indicate a strong, if imperfect, correspondence
to the psych verb classes proposed by Belletti & Rizzi (1988).
1) muli-laa saadii aavad-te
girl-dat-fem-sg saree-nom-fem-sg like-pres-fem-sg
`The girl likes the saree.'
*saadii aavadnaarii mulgi
saree-nom-fem-sg like-pres-part-fem-sg girl-dat-fem-sg
`The saree liking girl.' (Pandharipande, 1990)
2) muli-laa abhyaas samaj-to
girl-dat-fem-sg study nom-mas-sg understand- pres-mas-sg
`The girl understands the study.'
abhyaas samajnaarii mulgi.
study nom-mas-sg understand- pres-part-fem-sg girl-nom-fem-sg
`The study understanding girl.'
References:
Belletii, Adriana and Luigi Rizzi (1988). Psych Verbs and Theta
Theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 6 (pp.
291-352).
Joshi, Smita (1993). Selection of Grammatical and Logical
Functions in Marathi. PhD. Dissertation, Stanford University.
Pandharipande, Rajeshwari (1990). Experiencer Dative NPs in
Marathi. In Manindra Verma and K.P. Mohanan eds. Experiencer
Subjects in South Asian Languages. CSLI Publications.
Rosen, Carol and Kashi Wali (1989). Twin passive, Inversion, and
Multistratalism in Marathi. Natural language and Linguistic
Theory, 7 (pp. 1-50).
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if you have suggestions for presentations or the workshop in general.
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This workshop is sponsored by
the Stanford Humanities Center, and funded by a grant from the Mellon
Foundation.
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