Quirky subjects in Icelandic, Faroese, and German: A Relational Grammar account
Andreas Pankau
March 2017 

This paper presents a new analysis of quirky subjects according to which quirky subjects bear multiple grammatical relations and hence differ syntactically from regular subjects. This contrasts with the standard analysis of quirky subjects according to which quirky subjects are regular subjects bearing lexical case and therefore differ only morphologically from regular subjects. Based on the behavior of quirky subjects in Faroese and German, I argue that the syntactic account is superior. Faroese shows that the case borne by a quirky subject is not lexical, whereas German shows that quirky subjects are not regular subjects to begin with. The behavior of quirky subjects in Icelandic, on which the standard analysis is based, is argued to be the result of a morphosyntactic peculiarity of Icelandic.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/003922 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Proceedings of the Joint 2016 Conference on Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar and Lexical Functional Grammar
keywords:	quirky subjects, german, icelandic, faroese, arc pair grammar, syntax
Downloaded:	415 times

 

[ edit this article | back to article list ]