Syntax Files D1 2nd Test

case
- system of marking that provides information about an NP's function within the sentence
- usually by indicating its grammatical relation and/or thematic role
- usually expressed by inflection, which can be in the form of affixation or suppletion
grammatical (syntactic) case

carries information about NP's grammatical relation
semantic case

encodes information about thematic roles
nominative

subject
accusative

direct object
scrambling
- case provides way to distinguish between subjects and D.O.
- no need to rely on word order
- 'case languages' permit considerable freedom in the ordering of verb's arguments
differential object marking
- omit D.O. case marker when it has particular semantic properties
- 1) higher on animacy => more likely to be case marked
- human > animate > inanimate
- 2) higher on definite scale => more likely to be case marked
- personal pronoun > proper name > definite NP > indefinite specifc NP > non-specifc NP
- (definite: referent is familiar to speaker and addressee)
- (specific: speaker has particular referent in mind)

Author

kiryuu

108581

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Syntax Files D1 2nd Test

Description

Syntax Files D1 2nd Test

Updated

2011-10-13T03:30:11Z

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