Grammaticalization of subject agreement on evidence from Italo-Romance

Bibliographic Data

ID3989393
AuthorsDavid Bentley (0000-0002-2203-5197, University of Manchester, corresponding author), Delia Bentley
Year2018
Volume56
Issue6
Pages1245-1301
Publication date2018-11-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling-2018-0022
OpenAlexW2588835947
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited25

In this paper we consider the grammaticalization of subject agreement adducing first-hand synchronic evidence from presentational VS constructions in Italo-Romance dialects. While the existing literature has placed emphasis on the pragmatic properties of the controller, we explore its semantic properties. We argue that variation in subject agreement can only be fully captured with reference to an independently established semantic scale of subjecthood that is based on the position of arguments in semantic representation, and hence on their lexical entailments.Unaffected actoris the default controller in accusative alignment. The patterns of dialect microvariation arise, in our analysis, from variation in macrorole assignment in presentational focus. Our proposal formalizes at the discourse-semantics-syntax interface the idea that, in presentational VS constructions, the core argument S may be treated as part of the predicate, thus failing to control grammatical subject agreement. This happens in presentational focus because the predication is about an implicit topic. The latter can trigger a type of pronominal agreement that is comparable to Bresnan and Mchombo's (Bresnan, Joan & Sam A. Mchombo. 1987. Topic, pronoun and agreement in Chichewa.Language63. 741-782) anaphoric agreement. This study provides robust arguments in support of an understanding of subject agreement as the grammaticalization of semantic-relation contrasts, as well as pragmatic-role distinctions

Agreement · Focus (optics) · Grammaticalization · Linguistics · Physics · Predicate (mathematical logic) · Presentational and representational acting · Romance languages · Subject (documents) · Syntax · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation