Two modes of dative and genitive case assignment: Evidence from two stages of Greek

Nat Lang Linguist Theory https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-020-09465-z Two modes of dative and genitive case assignment: Evidence from two stages of Greek Elena Anagnostopoulou1 · Christina Sevdali2 Received: 23 December 2016 / Accepted: 8 February 2020 © The Author(s) 2020 Abstract In this paper, we compare the properties of dative and genitive objects in Classical vs. Modern Greek. Based on the difference in behavior of dative/genitive objects of ditransitives and monadic transitives in the two periods of Greek which correlates with a range of systematic alternations in the case realization of Modern Greek IO arguments depending on the presence and category (DP vs. PP) of lower theme arguments, we argue that there are two distinct modes of dative and genitive objective case assignment: they are either prepositional or dependent (structural) cases, as also proposed by Baker and Vinokurova (2010), and Baker (2015) on the basis of cross-linguistic evidence. If we adopt this proposal a number of important implications follow both for the syntax of Modern Greek genitive indirect objects and for the understanding of the change from Classical to Standard Modern Greek which must be seen as a development from a grammatical system where dative and genitive were lexical/inherent/prepositional cases to a system where genitive is a dependent case assigned to DPs in the sense of Marantz (1991). Interestingly, the development from Classical Greek (CG) to Modern Greek (MG) affected the availability of dative/genitive-nominative alternations in passivization, in the opposite direction of what might be expected, i.e. such alternations were possible in CG and are no longer possible in MG. Our paper addresses this puzzle and argues that the availability of such alternations is not always a diagnostic tool for detecting whether an indirect object DP bears lexically specified or structural/dependent Case, contra standard practice in the literature. B C. Sevdali E. Anagnostopoulou 1 University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece 2 Ulster University, Jordanstown, UK E. Anagnostopoulou, C. Sevdali Keywords Dependent Case · Inherent Case · Dative · Genitive · Accusative · Greek · Prepositions · Passivization 1 Introduction This paper contributes an argument from two stages of Greek in favor of the proposal that there are two modes of dative and genitive objective case assignment:1 they are either prepositional or dependent cases, as also concluded by Baker and Vinokurova (2010) and Baker (2015) drawing on cross-linguistic evidence. Specifically, we compare the properties of dative and genitive objects in two different periods of Greek. Classical Greek (CG) had morphological dative and morphological genitive case productively marking direct objects (DOs) of monadic transitive verbs and indirect objects (IOs) in ditransitives. The distribution of these cases was subject to idiosyncratic information in transitives, in contrast to accusative case which was more productive and regular, and thematic information in ditransitives where dative was used for goals and genitive for sources and possessors. On the other hand, Standard Modern Greek (SMG) has lost dative case and has retained morphological genitive canonically marking all IOs in ditransitives. Crucially, monadic transitive verbs rarely assign genitive in SMG. The majority of verbs that selected for dative and genitive objects in CG now take accusative objects. This correlates with the fact that SMG has a range of phenomena which show that the genitive case assigned to experiencer, source, possessor, goal and benefactive/malefactive IO arguments is sensitive to the presence and realization of lower theme arguments. Genitive morphology systematically surfaces on the higher IO when the lower theme is a DP bearing nominative or accusative case. When the lower theme is absent, realized as a PP or incorporated, then the IO bears nominative or accusative case. On the standard view of dative and genitive as inherent or lexical cases (Chomsky 1981, 1986; Woolford 2006, i.a.), there is no principled way of characterizing the differences between the two stages of Greek nor the transition from one system to the other. On the other hand, under the theory of dative advocated by Baker and Vinokurova (2010) and Baker (2015), the change from CG to SMG can be seen as a development from a grammatical system where dative and genitive were lexical/inherent cases to a system where genitive is a dependent case in the sense of Marantz (1991).2 Under the further hypothesis that lexical/inherent cases have the categorical status of PPs (Rezac 2008; Pesetsky 2013; Baker 2015 among many others), the transition from CG to SMG involves a restructuring from PP-datives and genitives into DPs receiving either genitive or accusative dependent case in different syntactic environments (ditransitives vs. monotransitives). We also compare the conditions regulating dependent accusative assignment in ditransitives of different dialects/languages (SMG, Northern Greek, 1 Throughout the paper we generally use ‘Case’ for abstract Case in the sense of Chomsky (1981, 1986) and Vergnaud (2008) and ‘case’ for morphological case in the sense of Marantz (1991) and Baker (2015), unless the authors we refer to do otherwise (see e.g. Harley’s 1995 Mechanical Case Parameter in (22)). For the glosses, we use the Leipzig glossing rules. 2 Cf. Polinsky (2016) for an argument along the same lines regarding the diachronic evolution of ergative case from PPs to DPs bearing structural case in a range of languages. Two modes of dative and genitive case assignment English) and we propose that these languages differ in whether dependent case is assigned to the IO in opposition to a lower DO which, in turn, determines whether the DO or the IO is assigned dependent case in opposition to the external argument (EA). This leads to a novel partial cross-linguistic typology of ditransitives. Intriguingly, the diachronic development from CG to MG also affected the availability of dativenominative (Dat-Nom) and genitive-nominative (Gen-Nom) alternations in passives, which were possible in CG and are no longer licit in MG, offering a new perspective on the understanding of such alternations. Our investigation shows that the availability of Dat-Nom and Gen-Nom alternations does not always qualify as a diagnostic tool for detecting whether an argument bears lexical/inherent or structural Case, contra standard practice in the literature. The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2, we describe the CG and SMG facts which lead us to propose that the two systems are syntactically distinct and that the standard treatment of dative and genitive as inherent Cases is not fine grained enough to handle the differences between the two patterns. In Sect. 3, we present our proposal whereby SMG genitives are best analyzed as dependent cases and CG datives and genitives are best analyzed as inherent cases. We provide no (...truncated)