Rethinking structural case: Partitive case in Sakha
The Sakha language has a special partitive case used only on nonspecific direct objects in imperative sentences. This is neither a canonical structural case, nor a canonical inherent case. We show that its basic properties can be explained within a configurational case theory by assuming that partit...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | English |
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Zenodo
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4680299 https://zenodo.org/record/4680299 |
| Summary: | The Sakha language has a special partitive case used only on nonspecific direct objects in imperative sentences. This is neither a canonical structural case, nor a canonical inherent case. We show that its basic properties can be explained within a configurational case theory by assuming that partitive is unmarked case assigned to any NP within the VP complement of v imp , a special v head found only in the scope of imperative (Jussive) heads and a few semantical similar items. This theory is briefly contrasted with one in which partitive is assigned by agreement with a special v, and one in which partitive is the feature V copied onto a nearby NP. |
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