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 |
Published: |
Zenodo
2021
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4680300 https://zenodo.org/record/4680300 |
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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