Proto-Roles and Case Selection in Optimality Theory - CiteSeerX

Proto-Roles and Case Selection in Optimality Theory Beatrice Primus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Proto-Roles......................................................................................................................... 2 Two dimensions of role-semantic information: Causal dependency and involvement...... 5 Formal abbreviations.......................................................................................................... 7 The Thematic Case Selection Principle and its OT-implementation ............................... 10 Intransitive predicates, Case Markedness and Case Dependency.................................... 16 Ditransitive predicates, Case Distinctness and Dative Constraint ................................... 19 Diachronic case variation ................................................................................................. 21 Meaning variation and paradigmatic lexical constraints.................................................. 30 Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 34

1 Introduction The main theoretical assumptions of this paper are inspired by Dowty's (1991) Proto-Role approach and Optimality Theory (OT)1. One of the main assumptions is that all principles and constraints are violable, even if this is not stated explicitly. The OT constraints are supplemented by more general principles that are meant to enhance the explanatory power of the OT framework by showing that families of constraints and their fixed ranking fall under such principles. The main departure from Dowty's proposal is the distinction between the degree of involvement of a participant and the semantic dependency of Proto-Patients upon Proto-Agents, a distinction which motivates the division of labour between case and structural linking (cf. Primus 1996, 1999a, 2002b). This paper focusses on case linking. The main departure from generative approaches on case linking is the assumption that the distinction between structural and lexical case does not hold universally and that there are languages (e.g. German) that do not have structural cases (cf. Primus 2002b). The present investigation is embedded in a typological perspective and offers an OT analysis of the basic typological distinction between ergative, accusative and split intransitive constructions. This broader view is supplemented by more detailed analyses of German with special focus on the diachronic and synchronic case variation with psych-verbs.2 The outline of this paper is the following. After an exposé of Dowty's Proto-Role approach (§ 2), the two dimensions of role semantics, causal dependency and involvement, are discussed (§ 3). In section 4, the most important terms are introduced in a formally abbreviated way. The Thematic Case Selection Principle and its Ergative Parameter are implemented within OT in section 5. The next two sections introduce the most important competing case constraints, Case Markedness, Case Dependency and Case Distinctness on the basis of intransitive predicates (§ 6) and ditransitive predicates (§ 7). Ditransitive predicates are also meant to serve as an empirical basis for a discussion of the role-semantic Dative Constraint. Diachronic case variation is the topic of section 8, which focusses on case variation with psych-verbs, the decline of constructions without a nominative and of the genetive. Section 9 deals with lexical meaning variation and its impetus on case selection. A summary of the main results is given in section 10.

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The OT proposal of Aissen (1999) is meant to implement Dowty's approach, but in fact the gradience of his cluster concepts is not taken into consideration. 2 The investigations leading to the present paper are funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG), Project B10, SFB 282 "Theory of the Lexicon".

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2 Proto-Roles Dowty (1991) views thematic roles such as agent and patient as prototype cluster concepts and calls them Proto-Roles. This assumption has three important consequences. First, agentivity and patienthood are a matter of degree: an argument may be more agentive or patientlike than another due to the fact that an argument may have a varying number of properties that define a Proto-Role. Secondly, thematic roles are not necessarily discrete (i.e. distinct) entities and accordingly, an argument may have thematic features that would fall under two thematic roles within traditional approaches. Thirdly, predicates may assign the same thematic properties to two of their arguments. Under these assumptions, Dowty needs only two Proto-Roles to capture the mapping of thematic roles to grammatical functions: Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient. These assumptions of the Proto-Role approach are the main reason why his proposal has been chosen for a further elaboration in this paper and in earlier work (cf. Primus 1995, 1999a).3 In general terms, a thematic role is viewed by Dowty as a set of entailments of a class of predicates with respect to one of their argument types. Formally speaking, a thematic entailment is a (second order) property of a predicate relative to one of its arguments. I will call the properties defining a Proto-Role basic thematic relations, since they will not be decomposed further. The properties (or basic thematic relations) that characterize the Agent Proto-Role are listed in (1): (1) Contributing properties for the Agent Proto-Role: (a) volitional involvement in the event or state (b) sentience (and/or perception) with respect to the event or state denoted by the verb (c) causing an event or change of state in another participant (d) movement (relative to the position of another participant) ((e) exists independently of the event named by the verb) (f) possession of another entity (1a)-(1e) are Dowty's proposal (1991:572). (1f) includes possession in the list, following, among others, Jackendoff (1991). Each of these characteristics is semantically independent. Nevertheless, some of them tend to co-occur (e.g. volition or causation and movement) and one property may unilaterally imply another (e.g. volition implies sentience, cf. Dowty (1991:606). Dowty illustrates the semantic distinctiveness of each of the Proto-Agent entailments with the first arguments of the predicates in (2a)-(2) and assumes that these predicates have just one entailment for the subject entity. (2f) has been added to illustrate possession: (2) (a) Volition alone: John is being polite to Bill. John is ignoring Mary. (b) Sentience/perception alone: John knows/believes/is disappointed at the statement. John sees/fears Mary. (c) Causation alone: His loneliness causes his unhappiness. (d) Movement alone: The rolling tumbleweed passed the rock. Water filled the boat. He accidentally fell. ((e) Independent existence: John needs a car.) (f) Possession alone: John has a car. 3

Closely related proposals (cf. Dowty 1991, Primus 1999a, Chap. 3) are the macrorole approach of Van Valin (cf. Foley / Van Valin 1984, Van Valin / LaPolla 1997) and the transitivity concept of Hopper and Thompson (1980).

3 The basic concepts used in (1) and (2) are not defined by Dowty, but some of his comments are helpful. Volitionality is used in the sense of intentionality on the part of the participant in question. As known from philosophical approaches to action and agentivity, there are more mental properties defining an agent besides his intention to do something. He is also able to start and stop the event at will, he is responsible for the event, he is able to do it, etc. (cf. Rayfield 1977:787f., Thalberg 1972:51). Therefore, Dik's term control seems to be more appropriate (Dik 1978). Psychological research (cf. Libet 1985) also suggests that the conscious part in initiating an action is not the impulse to act but rather the control of that impulse. Sentience comprises an emotion, a sensation, a specific mental attitude, or the awareness of the situation denoted by the verb. Including sentience in the list of Proto-Agent properties is uncommon within linguistic tradition, but it is in conformity with the philosophical approaches dealing with the concept of action (cf. Thalberg 1972:66). Recall that intention, control, or volition unilaterally imply sentience of the event named by the verb. Despite its unchallenged importance for the notion of agentivity, causation is one of the most controversial terms in (1) above. It will be discussed in section 3 more extensively. Movement is attributed by Dowty to any form of activity of the argument in question (also for the first argument of look at). It is a Proto-Agent property only if it is an autonomous activity, i.e. an activity whose source of energy lies within the participant and which is not caused by another participant. In this sense, causation has priority over movement for distinguishing agents from patients (cf. Dowty 1991:574). This seems to be a very promising idea which will be taken up in section 3. It is in conformity with cognitive linguistic research demonstrating the relevance of the concept of self-propelled movement for the cognitive development of the notion of agentivity and causation (cf. Premack 1990, Leslie 1995, Premack / Premack 1995). As a consequence, if movement is caused by another participant, it will be considered a Proto-Patient property in the present approach. Thus for instance, in John threw the ball both entities move, but it is only the ball, the Proto-Patient, that moves as a response to John's movement. Independent existence, which is only tentatively included in Dowty's list (cf. the brackets), has a special status. It means that the referent is de re or specific rather than de dicto or nonspecific, or that it is presumed to exist before and after the event. The special status of independent existence is noticed by Dowty himself (1991:573): it is logically entailed by all other Proto-Agent statements. Although there are some verbs that have this particular entailment but none of (1a)-(1d), there are apparently no verbs having any of (1a)-(1d) including possession in (1f) - without entailing existence (for the given argument) as well. The distinction between independently and dependently involved participants is crucial in the present approach for the distinction between Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient and for the rolesemantic factor that determines structural linking (i.e. the basic order of verbal arguments). Let us now turn to Proto-Patient and the basic thematic relations defining it. Cf. (3): (3) Contributing properties for the Patient Proto-Role: (a) is controlled (volitionally affected) by another participant (b) is causally affected by another participant (c) undergoes a change of state, e.g. is moved or physically manipulated by another participant (d) is the target of the sentience of another participant ((e) is dependent on another participant or on the situation denoted by the verb) (f) is the object of possession of another participant These basic concepts have already been illustrated by the second arguments in (2) above, except for change of state in (3c). As noticed by Dowty himself, Proto-Patient entailments are

4 harder to isolate and a change of state is particularly difficult to find in isolation. A perceptible physical, not just mental change of state that is not volitionally brought about (but plausibly caused) by another participant is found in the second argument of John (inadvertently) spilled the water and possibly in its intransitive variant the water spilled if one assumes an implicit causing event for unaccusative verbs in English (cf. Levin / Rappaport Hovav 1995). Some of the thematic roles found in the literature can be defined in Dowty's model on the basis of the lists in (1) and (3). In the narrowest sense of the term, agents can be defined by the properties listed in (1a-d), with volition or control being the crucial factor. Experiencers are sentient participants that have no other agentive properties in the traditional use of the term. The Proto-Role approach can also cope with arguments that have both agent and patient properties like the traditional notions of recipient, goal and benefactive that can be defined in this way (cf. Proto-Recipient in Primus 1999a). Such a role is found with verbs denoting a change in possession (give x something y, take something y from x, bake x a cake y) or a change in sentience (tell x a story y, show x a picture y). As a possessor or an experiencer, such an argument is a Proto-Agent relative to the third participant. At the same time it is a Proto-Patient relative to the first participant, which causes its change in possession and sentience (cf. section 4 below). Besides minor points, such as including possession in the list, two major departures from Dowty's concept of Proto-Patient have to be mentioned. The first is the treatment of aspectual concepts. For Dowty a change of state includes coming into existence, going out of existence and both definite and indefinite changes of state. Some but not all arguments of this type are incremental themes, a notion that is included in Dowty's Proto-Patient list, but not in (3) above. Incremental themes are participants gradually affected in accomplishment events. Some of them undergo a perceptible and existential change of state, such as in build a house, write a poem, eat a cake, but others do not, cf. memorize a poem. Purely aspectual notions such as incrementality and punctuality are treated here as a separate factor which may influence the syntactic realization of arguments. The second departure is the basic status given to the distinction between an independent and a dependent involvement. In the present approach, it is not considered an additional property (see the brackets in (1e) and (3e)), but rather the underlying criterion that distinguishes the properties of Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient from each other. The ProtoPatient properties in (3) involve the same basic concepts that also characterize the ProtoAgent: volition, causation, change (e.g. movement, physical activity), sentience and possession. The basic difference between the two roles is that a Proto-Agent does not entail the presence of another participant, while a Proto-Patient does. This dependency notion contributes to the clarification of the notion of affectedness, which is considered by many linguistics to be the characteristic property of patients. As to a deeper explanation for this dependency notion, cognitive approaches to the notion of causality contribute towards its clarification. Contrary to the assumption of Dowty and other linguists who treat causation as one component of agentivity, cognitive approaches suggest that causality is the relevant cluster concept and agentivity the derived manifestation of it (cf. Lakoff / Johnson 1980, Premack 1990, Leslie 1995, Premack / Premack 1995). If this turns out to be a viable hypothesis, the fact that a Proto-Patient depends on a Proto-Agent is an epiphenomenon of the dependency between cause and effect. This idea will be elaborated in the next section.

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3 Two dimensions of role-semantic information: Causal dependency and involvement The dependency between cause and effect has been formulated explicitly in the tradition of philosophical logic in terms of the implication relation p→q, in which p is a sufficient condition for q and q a necessary condition for p. According to one of Hume's well-known proposals, a cause is an 'object' (i.e. an event, following Davidson 1967) that is a sufficient condition for another 'object' and this follows from empirical, i.e. non-logical laws (cf. Mittelstraß 1984:376). A well-known example is a rolling ball causing the movement of another ball. Two further factors, which have been shown to be relevant for causal cognition and the development of causal notions in infants (cf. Leslie 1995, Premack / Premack 1995), deserve special mention: the causing object must be contiguous in space with the causally affected object and the resulting event must immediately succeed the causing event (cf. also Stegmüller 1983). In our example, the causing ball must touch the causally affected ball, and the movement of the affected ball must immediately succeed the movement of the causing ball. Talking about 'the' cause of an event is a gross idealization. According to Stegmüller (1983) the cause is the sum of all necessary conditions which are sufficient for the effect only in their totality. This leads us to the second of Hume's proposals, which has been taken up by Lewis (1973): if an 'object' had not been, the other 'object' would never have existed. Leaving the counterfactual aspect aside, this alternative view takes the cause to be a necessary condition for the effect. This is a genuine dependency notion. These observations legitimate us to test an individual causal factor on the basis of counterfactual necessity. The causal notion that is captured most appropriately and directly by the philosophical approaches mentioned above is physical, mechanical causation. It is best illustrated by situations in which an object physically moves another object. As pointed out by Premack (1990), among others, there must be a crucial asymmetry in the movement of the two objects in order to establish a causal relation. The movement of the causer has to be self-propelled; i.e., the source of the energy lies within this object. In fact, it suffices to postulate the weaker condition that the movement of the first object is independent from the movement of the second. Additionally, physical causal relations have the above-mentioned properties of physical contact (spatial contiguity) and temporal immediate succession. In the present approach, this physical causal relation is captured by the movement component in the notions of Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient.4 It does not only explain the dependency of a moved ProtoPatient on an autonomously moving Proto-Agent, but also the fact that physical contact, i.e. physical manipulation, is a relevant condition on case selection (cf. Primus 1999a, Chap. 4, for German). The other causal notions are psychological. Agents pursue goals and act voluntarily upon entities which are not necessarily contiguous in space and whose change is not necessarily physical and temporarily immediate. Such situations are denoted by the verbs threat, console or promise. This goal-oriented notion is called teleological causality in both cognitive (cf. Leslie 1995) and philosophical approaches (cf. von Wright 1971). It characterizes the volitional or intentional involvement of a participant in the event named by the verb and is the most uncontroversial and widely accepted component of the notion of agentivity. Despite the fact that von Wright restricts his notion of voluntary action to situations with two or more participants, there is general consensus in the linguistic literature that the monovalent verbs walk and work denote controlled situations.

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Dowty (1991: 573) himself acknowledges that causation is almost always accompanied by movement.

6 The other psychological causality notion is sentience. Sentience is an important condition for action. Recall that volitional or intentional involvement in an event implies sentience of that event on the part of the agent participant (cf. Dowty 1991:607, Thalberg 1972:66). But even when it occurs in isolation, as with psych-verbs such as know, like and see, sentience is a systematic causal factor that satisfies the counterfactual necessity criterion. If the first participant had not had the verb-specific sentience, the situation named by the verb would not have occured and the second participant would not have been an object of sentience. Following Cheng / Novick (1991) such a causal factor will be called an enabling condition. It is comparable to the causal role of oxygen in forest fires. The reason why oxygen is not called 'the cause' of a forest fire despite its being a necessary condition for fire is the fact that, under normal circumstances, there are no fires without oxygen. The same holds mutatis mutandis for experiencers. There is abundant psycholinguistic literature demonstrating that with two-place sentience verbs, the stimulus is also judged to be a causal factor (cf. the overview in Rudolph / Försterling 1997). But the difference between experiencers and stimuli that is crucial for subject selection is the fact that it is experiencers that have the specific mental or sensory property denoted by the verb (cf. Brown / Fish 1983). In other words, experiencers (not stimuli) are enabling conditions that are specifically involved in the situation denoted by the verb.5 As to possession, the following observations of Premack / Premack (1995:193f.) about the cognitive, socially relevant difference between the notion of group and that of possession are revealing. Both notions imply that two or more objects are physically connected and capable of co-movement. But only possession requires that one object be more powerful than the other. Ultimatively, it is the ability to control the possessed object that counts according to the authors. Recall that control implies sentience and, in prototypical cases, also movement. What distinguishes verbs such as murder or nominate from possession verbs such as own is the fact that control is a verb-specific entailment of murder or nominate, but not of own (e.g. *Peter deliberately owns three houses). In order for a statement such as x owns y to be true, x has to have some control over y, but the verb own does not specify this relation. The specific control relation does not depend on the verb, but on the terms involved. Possessing a house differs from possessing an arm. In the first case, the control of the possessor is manifest in the ability to sell or buy the possessed object; in the second case, it is the ability to control movement that counts. In sum, cognitive approaches to the notion of causality offer a promising way of explaining the dependency of Proto-Patients on Proto-Agents on the basis of the dependency between cause and effect. A first, more minor consequence of this approach to Proto-Patients is that arguments of different intransitive verbs can only be distinguished by the number of agent properties they accumulate or by a different causal or aspectual structure they are embedded in (cf. Primus 1999a, Primus 2002b). The fact that an argument does not bear any relevant agentive property (e.g. John is tall) does not automatically qualify it for a patient or theme, as often proposed in the literature. A major consequence of this view is that two dimensions of role-semantic information can be discerned. The first one is the degree of involvement of a participant. It is captured in a Proto-Role approach by the number of consistent agentive or patient-like Proto-Role entailments (or features) an argument accumulates. This aspect is crucial for Dowty's Argument Selection Principle, which states that "the argument for which the predicate entails the greatest number of Proto-Agent properties will be lexicalized as the subject of the predicate; the argument having the greatest number of Proto-Patient entailments will be lexicalized as the direct object" (1991: 576). But a closer analysis of argument selection on a 5

The causal and aspectual type of the situation is different with verbs such as frighten or please in English. They denote a change of state in the experiencer that is caused by the stimulus (cf., among others, Dowty 1991: 579).

7 larger cross-linguistic basis (cf. Primus 1995, 1999a, 2002b) has revealed that this aspect is only relevant for case-based grammatical functions. Dowty's principle makes false predictions for structurally expressed grammatical functions (basic order), which are sensitive to the semantic dependency between co-arguments: the semantically independent argument is structurally superior to or precedes the semantically dependent co-argument. In this respect, a Proto-Patient is dependent on a Proto-Agent. This dependency is expressed by placing the Proto-Agent in a structural position that is superior to or precedes the position of the ProtoPatient (cf. Primus 1996, 1998). The degree of agentivity or patienthood is irrelevant for structural linking.6 In conclusion, the basic concepts defining the agent and patient prototype are nothing new to the linguistic community. These are volition or control, causation, physical change (or movement), sentience and possession. For empirical reasons, the list can be ammended in various ways without affecting the logic of the principles that restrict the syntactic realization of arguments: one can substitute a basic concept with another (e.g. volition by control), split a concept into more basic ones (e.g. control into volition, responsability, etc.), or drop it altogether. Such steps may be needed as our knowledge about role semantics and argument selection will advance, but they are not crucial for the further argumentation in this paper. One major departure from previous approaches is the fact that two dimensions of rolesemantic information are distinguished: the degree of involvement of a participant and the semantic dependency between the participants. An argument whose thematic features are assigned independently from another argument is a Proto-Agent, a participant whose thematic features are assigned in dependence of another (implicit or explicit) argument is a ProtoPatient. In the next section the most important concepts and assumptions will be implemented more formally and will be conveniently abbreviated.

4 Formal abbreviations The Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient properties introduced in the previous sections will be abbreviated as follows: argument variables variable for the situation denoted by the verbal predicate argument included in s variable for any basic thematic predicate, e.g. ctrl, exp x causes s or some aspect in s x controls s or some aspect in s some aspect of y is under control of x x is physically active y is physically manipulated, e.g. moved, by x x experiences a sensory or mental state x experiences a sensory or mental state relative to y x is in possession of y 6

x, y, z s s[y] pred caus(x,s)7 ctrl(x,s) ctrl(x,y) phys(x) phys(x,y) exp(x) exp(x,y) poss(x,y)

Previous research has also acknowledged different dimensions of role-information, cf. for instance Jackendoff (1987, 1991) and Grimshaw (1990). But the dependency notion introduced here is more general and captures asymmetries beyond role semantics such as antecedent-anaphor and scope relations. Furthermore, I am not aware of a previous approach that has tied different types of semantic information to the division of labour between case and structure. 7 Strictly speaking, the causation relation involves two events, though the causing event is rarely explicitly denoted by the verb (cf. a typical causative verb such as x broke y). In linguistic tradition the causing event is reduced to the argument involved in it and is conventiently called causer.

8 Some of the basic thematic predicates that define Proto-Roles are tied by unilateral implications, as mentioned in the previous sections. Here are some examples: (4) (a) (b) (c) (d)

ctrl(x,s) ⇒ caus(x,s) exp(x,s) ⇒ caus(x,s) p-caus(x,s[y]) ⇒ phys(x,s[y]) ctrl(x,s) ⇒ exp(x,s)

The implications in (4a) and (4b) capture the fact that controllers and experiencers are causal factors of the situation denoted by the verb: s cannot take place without a specific property or or an event involving x. (4c) captures the fact that prototypical causation, p-caus, is physical causation where some activity of a participant causes a physical change in another participant in s. (4d) abbreviates the assumption that controllers of s are also sentient (i.e. aware) of s. The relative order of the argument variables is relevant. Given any basic thematic predicate with more than one argument pred(x,y), the first variable x is reserved for the independet argument, i.e. the Proto-Agent, and the second variable y for the Proto-Patient, i.e. that argument whose property denoted by the basic thematic predicate is dependent on x: (5)

Proto-Patient │ pred(x,y) │ Proto-Agent

The relative order of arguments for a predicate captures the causal dependency notion that distinguishes Proto-Agents from Proto-Patients and that is relevant for structural syntactic linking. In order to see how this works let us analyze the valency of a ditransitive verb such as give in one of its most common uses (e.g. Peter gave Mary an apple): (6) Partial lexical valency information for give: Proto-Roles: ctrl(x,s) phys(x,z) > phys(y,z) poss(x,z) > poss(y,z), exp(y,z) [caus(x,s)] [exp(x,s)] a-structure:

λzλyλx[give'(x,y,z)]

case linking in German: nomx, daty, accz This analysis is in conformity with the view that valency is a multi-dimensional phenomenon (cf. Hopper/Thompson 1980, Jacobs 1994a). The issue whether the different types of information are mentally represented in a modular way, i.e. on separate tiers, is not crucial for the current argumentation. In absence of firm evidence for this assumption, I assume that they are not separated in the mental representation. The separation only serves illustrative purposes. For the same reason, the representations are not free of redundant information. The Proto-Role analysis does not take the event structure of the verb into consideration (cf. Engelberg (2000) for an elaborate treatment within a Proto-Role approach), since most of this quite elaborate structure is not immediately relevant for case selection. The temporal succession relation > has been added between the poss- and phys-predicates in order to

9 illustrate the fact that give denotes a transfer of possession from x to y and that the physical contact with z also changes from x to y. The information caus(x,s) and exp(x,s) is bracketed since it is redundant (cf. the implications of ctrl(x,s) in (4) above). From exp(x,s) it follows that x is aware of the whole situation denoted by give, including awareness of y and z. The thematic analysis is arguably incomplete. The fact that the existence of all three participants is independent from the situation denoted by give and that they are enabling conditions for s in the sense defined in section 3 above has not been added because it does not help to discriminate these participants. The argument structure (abbreviated as a-structure) also offers partly redundant and partly new information. The substructure give'(x,y,z), including the relative order of arguments, is derivable from Proto-Role information. The non-redundant part of the lambda-substructure captures the number of arguments that have to be realized syntactically; the redundant part mirrors their relative order. The problems of mapping principles such as the Theta-Criterion of generative grammar that assume a one-to-one correspondence between theta-roles and syntactic arguments (cf. Dowty's critique (1991)) can be avoided if the Theta-Criterion is applied to this substructure (cf. Bierwisch 1988, Haider 1993, Chap. 5, Wunderlich 1997). Given the Proto-Role information and the lambda-substructure, case linking is, in general, partly predictable and partly idiosyncratic. Since the following section will deal with case linking in more detail, it will not be discussed here. The relative basic order of arguments is fully predictable by their relative order in the semantic valency representations (starting with their relative order in the Proto-Role frame) and by the Case Hierarchy nom > acc > dat introduced below (cf. Primus 1996, 1998). Whether more specific structural positions (e.g. Spec-IP for nomx) are also predictable is a more controversial matter that will not be pursued here (cf. Baker (1997) for a discussion). Since an exact valency analysis of verbs is not always necessary for the main line of argumentation, the following additional abbreviations are helpful: Proto-Agent Proto-Patient an argument with a large number of consistent (either agentive or patient-like) Proto-Role properties an argument with a small number of consistent Proto-Role properties an argument with A- and P-properties Involvement Hierarchy Dependency Hierarchy unilateral implication, e.g. Amax→NOM if an argument is a maximal agent, it is in the nominative

A P θmax, i.e. Amax or Pmax θmin, i.e. Amin or Pmin Amin\Pmin θmax > θmin, i.e. Amax > Amin or Pmax > Pmin A >dep P / e.g. Amax/NOM

The relevant pieces of information that are obtained from the semantic valency analysis of give can now be abbreviated as follows. The argument x is Amax, a maximal agent; y is Amin\Pmin, a Proto-Recipient; and z is Pmax, a maximal patient. This means that x is higher on the agentive Involvement Hierarchy than y (x is more agentive than y) and that z is higher on the patient Involvement Hierarchy than y (z is more 'affected' than y). As to dependency, the following relations are obtained from the Proto-Role analysis: x >dep y, x >dep z, y >dep z. These dependency relations lead us to the well-known thematic hierarchy which is crucial for structural coding, as mentioned above: (7) Agent > Recipient > Patient

10 The assumptions discussed so far and the abbreviations introduced in this section are needed for thematic case selection constraints, which are the topic of the next section.

5 The Thematic Case Selection Principle and its OT-implementation The principle restricting case selection in terms of thematic Proto-Role information is (8):8 (8) Thematic Case Selection Principle For any language L, for any participants that are syntactic arguments and for the highest ranking cases (i.e. morphological coding categories) A and B in L: (a) The greater the number of Proto-Agent basic relations a participant accumulates, the more likely it is coded by A. (b) The greater the number of Proto-Patient basic relations a participant accumulates, the more likely it is coded by B. The Ergative Parameter: (i) A construction in L is ergative if and only if A (commonly called ergative) is the second category and B (commonly called absolutive or nominative) the first category on the Case Hierarchy of L. A language L is ergative if and only if L has ergative constructions. (ii) A construction in L is accusative (i.e. nominative) if and only if A (commonly called nominative) is the first category and B (commonly called accusative) the second category on the Case Hierarchy of L. A language L is accusative if and only if L has no ergative constructions. The principle (8) presupposes a Case Hierarchy, such as that in (9): (9) nominative/absolutive >m accusative/ergative >m dative >m other oblique cases9 1C 2C 3C 4C According to terminological usage, the two highest ranking cases are called nominative / absolutive and accusative / ergative. The term oblique is used for all cases that are below 1C. Due to this terminological tradition, the Case Hierarchy (9) holds for many languages, but it is not universally valid. Nevertheless, a hierarchy-based principle such as (8), which is only sensitive to the relative ranking of cases, is universally applicable, even if each language has its own case hierarchy. One can avoid the problem of language-specific hierarchies by using the numerical order (1 > 2 > 3 etc.) and case variables, as suggested in (9). Case is used in (8) in a broader sense including adpositional10 and verb agreement markers. The latter qualify as equivalent for cases only if they are directly linked to thematic roles and are not predictable from another coding device such as case or structure. Agreement markers of this type are found in Tupinamba, for example (cf. (21) below). In other languages, verb agreement is determined by case relations (e.g. German) or structural 8

Dowty's proposal cited above is closely related but not identical to (8). The main difference to Dowty and many other approaches with similar principles is that in (8) the variables A and B range only over cases in the broader sense and that the principle itself does not link the most prominent syntactic function, the subject, to the Proto-Agent. 9 Instead of >m in the sense of 'higher than, more prominent than' one can use (cf. earlier work by the author) θmin with its two manifestations Amax > Amin and Pmax > Pmin. The principle (8) aligns the Involvement Scales harmonically with the first two elements of a Case Hierarchy, A and B. In OT, a harmonic alignment generates an invariant ranking of constraints (cf. Prince / Smolensky 1993: 129f.). In this particular application, we get the invariant rankings in (10): Constraint Schema for Thematic Case Selection

(a)

Amax/A

(b)

Amin/A

Pmax/B

>>




Amax/¬2C


Pmax/¬1C >>

(a)


patient into patient > agent for ergative constructions. This is not only highly stipulative, but also empirically questionable. Semantic roles are based on universal basic concepts, such as volition, causation, change and sentience, and there is little plausibility in claiming that speakers of ergative languages have a different view of such notions. Additionally, most approaches treat case as a superficial, epiphenomenal trait. Such an approach cannot explain the fact that syntactic ergativity unilaterally implies morphological ergativity.

14

Tab. 1 Input: Amax & Pmax )Verb α Verb β

Amax/1C & Pmax/2C

Amax/2C & Pmax/1C *

*!

The constraints are aligned in a tableau from left to right as stated in the ranking hypothesis of the respective language. If a candidate x violates a constraint and there is another candidate y that does not violate it, x has a fatal violation (cf. *!) and is eliminated from the competition. The winner (cf. )) is the candidate that has the smallest number of violations of the relevant highest constraint. If a competition is decided at a certain point of evaluation, further evaluations relative to weaker constraints are irrelevant (cf. the shaded columns). In order to license a verb β such as write(x,y) with the case pattern 2Cx & 1Cy (i.e. ergx & nomy), the ranking shown in Tab. 2 has to apply: Tab. 2 Input: Amax & Pmax Verb α )Verb β

Amax/2C & Pmax/1C

Amax/1C & Pmax/2C

*! *

A language allowing both verb lexemes α and β would have the constraints tied in an equal rank, which would violate the fixed ranking hypothesis of (11) and (12). However, the co-occurence of ergative and accusative constructions (morphological split ergativity) does not violate the ranking assumptions of the present approach, because this split is never dependent on the choice of the verb lexeme (cf. (15iv)). Ergative and accusative case patterns can only co-occur if there are other case selection constraints that rank above those linking cases to maximal agents and patiens. These cannot be constraints having lexical thematic information as an input because there are no thematic constraints that are stronger than those given in (11) and (12) for maximal agents and patients. Rather, (11) and (12) are compatible with a situation where constraints taking tense or aspect categories as input dominate constraints taking maximal agents and patients as input. Taking only agents into consideration for illustration purposes, the general schema for morphological split ergativity is A-X/¬2C >> Amax/2C, where A-X is an agent in a construction with a specific tense, person or another relevant category.15 This schema is compatible with the ergative ranking. If the condition X is not met, the ergative construction is selected. Such a situation is found in the perfect tense (PF) in Georgian and the Hopa dialect of Laz, where maximal agents occur in the dative and recipients in another oblique case (e.g. allative (ALL)). In the aorist (AOR), the ergative construction is chosen. Cf. (16): (16)

Laz (Hopa dialect, Harris 1985:308f.) (a) baba-k cxeni meč&u father-ERG horse(NOM)

skiri-s

give(AOR) child-DAT

'The father gave a horse to (his) son.' (b) baba-s

cxeni

father-DAT horse(NOM)

nuč&amun skiri-ša give(PF)

child-ALL

'The father has given a horse to (his) son.' 15

Aissen (1999) shows how a person- or animacy-determined split between ergative and accusative constructions can be implemented in OT.

15 Such a variation also occurs in ergative Indic languages, where the dative-agent construction is restricted to potentialis and other irrealis moods (cf. Abbi 1991). In Laz, the case pattern (16b) is also found in the potentialis (cf. Dumézil 1967). This construction is prima facie a counterexample to the ranking schematas in (10)-(12), since it seems to have a maximal agent that occurs in a case that is neither a nominative nor an ergative. There are at least two ways of explaining the dative in (16b). The first is constructional. This solution assumes a higher ranking constraint such as A-PERF/DAT (cf. the schema A-X/¬2C above) that requires a dative agent in the perfect. This constraint does not falsify the invariant ranking hypothesis in (11) or (12) since it is not of the same type as the constraints in (11) and (12). This option is shown in Tab. 3: Tab. 3 Input: Amax )(16a) ¬Perfect )(16b) Perfect

A-PERF/DAT

Amax/2C

*

(16a) wins because it does not fall under A-PERF/DAT (as indicated by the shading) and satisfies Amax/2C, which is the highest operative constraint for (16a). (16b) is also a winner because it satisfies A-PERF/DAT. The second solution is semantic. It is appropriate if there is a relevant semantic difference between (16a) and (16b), for instance, if the agent in (16b) is not maximal. In this case, (16a) and (16b) do not compete. Given Amin as an input for (16b), the invariant ranking Amin/¬2C >> Amax/¬2C will let (16b) win. (16a) is also a winner due to Amax/2C >> Amax/¬2C for ergative constructions. This semantic solution has some appeal. Dative-agent constructions are used if the agent is inactive (the perfect construction of Laz is interpreted as stative in the literature) or irrealis-potential, a criterion that was introduced by Hopper / Thompson (1980) and that can be included in the list of Proto-Role properties without changig the logic of the constraint schema. (16b) would be a serious and genuine counterexample to (11)-(12) if some verb lexemes had ergative agents and a fair amount of other verb lexemes dative agents and no constructional difference or meaning difference with respect to the maximality of the agent was found. A language with a variation of this kind has not been found yet. In conclusion, the thematic motivation of case selection is not only the distinction between Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient but also the distinction between a maximal and a minimal agent (or patient respectively). In other words, case is sensitive to the degree of involvement of a participant. The highest ranking, i.e. most strict, case constraints tie maximal agents and patients to the first two cases of a language. This scenario can be congenially implemented in Optimality Theory by a universally fixed ranking of constraints. An important consequence of this basic function of case linking is that both Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient may be maximal and that either of them can be tied to the first case of a language. This yields the major typological distinction between accusative and ergative constructions. In an optimality theoretic framework, this means that there are two involvement scales that yield two inverse fixed rankings: one for Proto-Agent and one for Proto-Patient. Another consequence of the assumed basic function of case is that the ergative-accusative distinction is case-based (and not structural) and that it is most clearly manifest with maximal agents and patients. Case patterns that do not obey the semantic case constraints exist due to other constraints that rank above the thematic ones. In principle, such constraints can be formal (i.e. constructional) or functional. This is in conformity with the well-known observation that case selection has various other motivations beyond that of distinguishing thematic roles. If no such competing case constraint can be found, a case pattern violating the thematic constraints is unmotivated. Such a pattern should be restricted to a few verb lexemes.

16 The next section will discuss a major type of formal constraints that compete with the thematic case selection constraints and will introduce lexical parochial constraints in order to capture idiosyncratic patterns.

6 Intransitive predicates, Case Markedness and Case Dependency Passive (and antipassive) constructions also seem to violate the fixed rankings of the Ergative Parameter. A passive is a syntactically intransitive construction with P/1C (e.g. English the apple was eaten); an antipassive has A/1C in an ergative language, a pattern that is also found with intransitive verbs in the unmarked voice (cf. the Dyirbal example (14a) above). These case patterns are explicable by an independent, higher ranking constraint forcing 1C to appear. Two solutions are plausible. The first one is functional and seems to be appropriate for the passive (and antipassive), at least in some languages. As known from functionaltypological work, the patient is more topical than the agent in the passive. Thus, Bresnan / Dingare / Manning (2001, cf. also Sells 2001) propose a constraint that ties topics to subjects (i.e. to 1C in the present approach). This constraint takes care that in the passive patients occur in the nominative even if they have to be in the accusative in the basic construction. An alternative, more general solution, which is applicable to any predicate, including passive and antipassive ones, is based on Case Markedness and Case Dependency (cf. Woolford 2001). The relevant underlying principle is stated in (17): (17)

Formal Case Principle: The assignment of a lower ranking case by a predicate P implies unilaterally the assignment of a higher ranking case by P; the higher the rank of a case is, the less restricted is the class of predicates that assign it.

(17) is an economy-driven markedness constraint schema that captures the well-known universal implication that the selection of a marked element implies unilaterally the selection of a less marked element. (17) is formalized in OT as (18): (18)

(a) Case Dependency *[nC&¬mC] >> *[nC&mC]

given mC > nC

*[nC&¬mC] is equivalent with [nC→mC] and means 'nC does not occur without mC'

(b) Case Markedness *nC >> *n-1C (alternative: n-1C! >> nC!) OBL = 2C, 3C etc. Examples: *[OBL&¬1C] >> *[OBL&1C] *DAT >> *ACC / *ERG >> *NOM / *ABS (alternative: NOM! >> ACC! >> DAT!) The case dependency constraints in (18a) prohibit, for instance, an oblique case without a nominative (or absolutive) as well as a dative without an accusative (or ergative). (18b) is a special case of a ranking schema for scale-based constraints (cf. Prince / Smolensky 1993: 129f.): If x > y on a scale, then Con(x) >> Con(y) or *Con(y) >> *Con(x). Con is a variable for any imperative constraint applying to x and y, while *Con is the prohibitive variant. In Primus (1999a,b) the imperative variant was chosen, but the prohibitive variant is also in use (cf. Woolford 2001). The choice depends on the empirical data that are under examination: if one is interested in constructions without a nominative, it is more economical to start the evaluation with the strongest relevant constraint, which is 1C! and not *DAT. The absolute markedness constraints in (18b) are logically stronger than the dependency constraints in (18a). Thus, 1C! bans any verbal syntactic argument structure without a nominative, whereas *[OBL&¬1C] only eliminates syntactic argument structures with

17 obliques and no nominatives. The difference between the two constraints shows up in the data that are evaluated in Tab. 7 and Tab. 8 below (cf. Fn. 23). Similarly, *DAT is logically stronger than *[DAT&¬1C]. In order to be operative *[DAT&¬1C] has to dominate *DAT. Languages with this ranking allow datives in transitive and ditransitive constructions, but ban the dative as the only syntactic argument of intransitive verbs (e.g. Japanese, cf. Woolford (2001)). If *DAT dominates *[DAT&¬1C], the language has no dative at all (e.g. English, Swedish). Two language types exist due to the fact that there are two logical options of ranking the Nominative-Requirement 1C! relative to the semantic constraints that license an oblique case for a Proto-Agent, Amax/¬1C or Amin/¬1C. This typological distinction is called 'activeinactive' or 'split intransitivity' in typological research. Cf. (19)-(20): (19)

All clauses have a nominative: 1C! >> Amax/¬1C or Amin/¬1C E.g. English, French, Swedish (accusative languages); Dyirbal and Yidiny (cf. Blake 1987:28f., ergative languages)

(20)

Not all clauses have a nominative: Amax/¬1C or Amin/¬1C >> 1C! E.g. German, Latin, Icelandic (accusative languages); Bats, Lhasa Tibetan, Tupinamba and other Tupi-Guarani languages (ergative languages)

The ranking options mention two semantic constraints, Amax/¬1C or Amin/¬1C. (19)-(20) captures the competition between the Nominative-Requirement and the most dominant semantic antagonist. Amax/¬1C, specifically Amax/2C, is the strongest antagonist in ergative languages where this constraint is higher than Amin/¬1C (see (12) above). In accusative languages Amin/¬1C is the highest semantic antagonist (see (11) above). Split intransitivity will be illustrated with examples from Tupinamba and German. Let us start with Tupinamba: (21)

Tupinamba (Jensen 1990:117f.) (a) syé só-reme 1SG,1C go-if

'If/When I go.' (b) syé

katú-reme

1SG,1C good-if

'If/When I am good.' (c) syé

nupã

1SG,1C hit

'He/They/You hit me.'16

The prefix category used for the Proto-Patient in transitive clauses, syé in the examples above, is generalized over all intransitive dependent clauses. For dependent clauses, we have the same ranking that characterizes an ergative language without split intransitivity, e.g. Dyirbal:

16

There is only one prefix slot for transitive verbs as shown in (21c). In this situation, the choice of the agreement marker is further determined by the relative position of the Proto-Agent and the Proto-Patient on the Person Hierarchy 1st > 2nd > 3rd. The syntactic argument with the highest rank on the Person Hierarchy determines the agreement prefix according to its Proto-Role. If it is the Proto-Agent, it takes an 2C-prefix; if it is the Proto-Patient, it takes a 1C-prefix.

18 1C! >> Amax/2C. In independent intransitive clauses, however, the situation is different, cf. 22): (22) (a) a-só 1SG,2C-go

'I go/went.' (b) syé

katú

1SG,1C good

'I am good.' The single argument of intransitive verbs has different agreement markers. The verb prefix in (22a) is also used for the 1st person agent of a transitive verb. The prefix in (22b) is the same as that for the 1st person patient of the transitive verb in (21c). Tupinamba has no overt cases on nominals or free pronouns. The split intransitivity of independent clauses is captured by the characteristic ranking Amax/2C >> 1C! The two opposite rankings of Tupinamba show that a typological distinction can cut across clause types within one language (cf. Silverstein 1976). German and Tupi-Guarani languages have in common that not all intransitive verbs select the same case. But they differ from each other by the fact that in German, oblique arguments are not a default option, but rather the lexical exception. This is the main reason why German is not considered to be a typical active language. Cf. (23): (23)

(a) Sie arbeitet. Sie ist deshalb müde. 'She (nom) is working. Therefore, she (nom) is/feels tired.' (b) Ihr ist schwindlig. 'She (dat) feels dizzy.'

The default case pattern in German is shown in (23a). This default is captured by the ranking 1C! >> Amin/¬1C, as in English. This ranking holds for every verb lexeme that is not explicitly listed in a lexical constraint dominating the Nominative-Requirement. Such a constraint is needed for predicates such as (23b). Following Hammond (1995), lexical exceptions are captured by parochial lexical constraints, as shown in (24): (24)

Amin/¬1C licensed by lexical constraints in German: LEX-Aexp/DAT (kalt, schwindlig, übel sein) >> 1C! >> Amin/¬1C

For illustrative purposes, only three adjective+copula predicates, schwindlig / kalt / übel sein 'feel dizzy / cold / sick', have been included in the lexical constraint. The predicate müde sein 'feel tired' is explicitly not included in the list as it cannot select a non-nominative Experiencer. Tab. 4 evaluates two relevant candidates for each type of predicate: Tab. 4 Input: x = Amin = Aexp schwindlig: nomx )schwindlig: datx müde: datx )müde: nomx

LEX-Aexp/DAT (kalt, schwindlig, übel sein) *!

1C!

Amin/¬1C *

* *! *

19 The columns shaded with vertical lines indicate that the lexical constraint does not apply to müde sein. This kind of treatment is also appropriate for Icelandic, Russian, Latin, Rumanian, Quechua, Avar, Laz and Hindi, where a rather small number of intransitive verbs select an oblique case. But note that parochial lexical constraints are also needed for Tupinamba and other typically split intransitive languages. As amply documented in the typological literature, the split is not fully predictable on the basis of the thematic role of the argument in question. The competition between the Nominative-Requirement and the semantic constraint Amin/¬1C (or Amax/¬1C for ergative languages) explains not only typological variation but also diachronic variation, which will be discussed in section 8. Before discussing the latter, I will complete the range of competing case constraints by taking ditransitve predicates into consideration.

7 Ditransitive predicates, Case Distinctness and Dative Constraint There is general agreement that the following examples show a semantically typical ditransitive verb (e.g. give) and case patterns that are widely distributed for such verbs among the languages of the world: (25) (26) (27) (28)

German: Der Vater (1C) gab dem Sohn (3C=NP) ein Pferd (2C). English: The father (1C) gave a horse (2C) to his son (3C=PP). English: The father (1C) gave the son (2C) a horse (2C). Laz (= 16a): babak (2C) cxeni (1C) meču skiris (3C).

The examples are translations of each other in order to facilitate cross-linguistic comparison. The thematic analysis of the verb give(x,y,z) in section 4 above has revealed that the roles selected by this verb can be abbreviated as x = Amax, y = Amin\Pmin and z = Pmax. Recall that a combination of A- and P-properties is abbreviated as Proto-Recipient for convenience. A similar analysis holds for verbs with benefactives as in Peter is baking Mary a cake. The relation between Mary and cake in these examples implies a possessor-possessed relation (cf. Jackendoff 1991, Shibatani 1996). Other typical ditransitive verbs such as teach, tell and show have the Proto-Agent implication of sentience for the argument y. If x teaches y z, then x intends that y gets to know z. If x shows y z, then x intends that y sees z (cf. Blansitt 1973). The evaluation for the maximal agent can proceed on the basis of the constraints introduced so far. Amax/1C requires the nominative for Amax in an accusative construction and Amax/2C requires the ergative in an ergative construction (cf. (28)). Since ergative constructions have been dealt with in the preceding sections, let us focus on the more familiar accusative languages and take a closer look at German, which has three productive adverbal cases (the genetive is residual and non-productive). In Tab. 5, 18 of the 27 logically possible candidates are eliminated by Amax/1C: Tab. 5 1-9 10-18

x = Amax dat acc

y z 2 3 candidates 32 candidates

Amax/1C *! *!

As to the candidates 1-9, Actrl, phys/1C, a special case of Amax/1C, is only violated in some AcIconstructions (cf. Primus 1999b).17 Potential violations are also found with verbs selecting 17

The AcI-constructions with Actrl, phys in the accusative are, for example, Ich sah den Vater (acc) dem Sohn einen Apfel geben 'I saw how the father gave an apple to the son'. Despite the violation of Amax/1C, this construction is the best candidate in the given role configuration (cf. Primus 1999b: 161f.).

20 nominative less agentive recipients and oblique more agentive arguments, such as erhalten, bekommen 'receive, get' (cf. Maria bekam ein Buch von Peter 'Mary got a book from Peter') and their equivalents in other languages. This pattern cannot win as a default in an accusative language due to the fixed ranking Amax/1C >> Amin/1C. But note that with such predicates the adpositional agent is not a controller (cf. Kunze 1991). The maximal agents of passive constructions do not violate Actrl, phys/1C either, under the plausible assumption that the adpositional marking is constructional and not assigned via government by the verbal predicate. The evaluation of the case options for the second and third argument of give requires additional constraints. The first is Case Distinctness, a constraint that is well-known from different types of approaches: (29)

DIST: No identical case categories within the case frame of a predicate.

A further constraint restricts the semantic function of the dative. In German (and other Indoeuropean languages), the dative is restricted to arguments that accumulate minimal agent properties. What a minimal agent is may vary from language to language. In German, a controlling and thus sentient, physically active participant, Actrl, phys, is a maximal agent that falls under Amax/1C. The Dative Constraint (cf. Primus 1999a,b) is given in (30): (30)

Dative Constraint (e.g. Modern German):18 DAT/Amin = ¬Amin/¬DAT

Such a system tolerates only those datives as a lexical default that are linked to minimal agents. It is not only violated by a Pmax and Amax in the dative, but also by a dative Pmin, unless this minimal patient also has minimal agent properties. Tab. 6 continues the evaluation of Tab. 5 and evaluates the remaining 9 candidates with respect to DIST and the highest semantic constraint Pmax/2C (their relative ranking is not crucial, as suggested by the interrupted line, since 24 will win at either ranking): Tab. 6 19 20 21 22 23 )24 25 26 27

x = Amax nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom

y = Amin\Pmin nom acc nom acc dat dat dat nom acc

z = Pmax nom acc acc nom nom acc dat dat dat

Pmax/2C *!

*! *! *! *! *!

DIST ** * * * * * *

Candidate 24 is the winner in German and other languages that have a third case such as the dative, which qualifies semantically for Amin. Although this pattern is the default option, the suboptimal candidate 20 incurring only one violation of DIST deserves special mention. In German, it is licensed by a lexical constraint above DIST that lists a few verbs with a similar but not identical thematic interpretation, such as lehren 'teach', abfragen 'test somebody on something', fragen 'ask somebody something' and bitten 'ask / request something from somebody', as well as AcI-predicates (ich lasse dich einen Brief schreiben 'I let you write a

18

The dative constraint DAT/Amin and the ranking DAT/Amin >> DAT/Pmin is not universal. DAT/Pmin seems to be stronger in some languages such as Dyirbal, for instance (cf. Blake 1977).

21 letter').19 In a language like English, *DAT ranges over DIST, so that 20 (or an adpositional marking or y) is the optimal candidate (cf. (26)-(27) above).20 The previous sections focussed on typological case variation in terms of ergative, accusative and split intransitive case patterns. This variation was captured by different constraint rankings. The most important types of competing constraints restricting case selection were introduced: constraints in terms of role-semantics, markedness and distinctness. These are, of course, not the only factors that restrict case selection, but they are certainly very important ones. The next section will focus on diachronic case variation and psych-verbs in German. Psych-verbs are of particular interest as they involve minimal agents and patients. For these roles, the thematic constraints are of a lower rank and in competition with each other. As a consequence, they are more liable to be dominated by other constraints that affect case selection. The decline of case patterns without a nominative is the main topic of the next section, but the consequences of the loss of the genetive will also be taken into consideration.

8 Diachronic case variation As well known, earlier stages of German (and of other Indoeuropean languages)21 were more tolerant with respect to case patterns without a nominative. (31) shows examples from Old High German (OHG): (31)

(a) noch regenot nicht mé (Milstätter genesis & Exodus 145,29) '(It) did not rain anymore.' (b) was sambaztag in themo tage (Tatian 88, 3) '(It) was saturday on that day.' (c) thaz guates uns ni brusti (Otfrid IV,27,16) 'that we (dat) did not lack the good (gen)' (d) mih thursta (Tatian 152, 6) 'He (acc) was thirsty.'

On the basis of previous research (cf. Behaghel 1923-1932, Held 1903, Eggenberger 1961, Seefranz-Montag 1983, Lenerz 1985, Ebert 1986, Große 1990, Abraham 1991), the development can be sketched as follows. The reconstructed period before the first written texts can be captured by the constraint ranking in (32): (32)

Early OHG: FULL-INT-ARG, TOP/SPEC-V2, LEX-Amin/¬1C >> 1C!

The comma between constraints indicates that their relative ranking is not crucial (for instance because they do not compete). The new constraint FULL-INT-ARG is a special case of a more general faithfulness constraint FULL-INT (cf. Grimshaw 1997) that prohibits deletion of lexical semantic information as well as insertion of items that are not in the semantic argument structure of a head (e.g. expletives). The second new constraint, TOP/SPEC-V2, is a special case of SPEC-V2 (cf. Müller 2000) that requires a syntactic phrase in the preverbal position of 19

Note that two nominatives (cf. candidate 21) are also licensed by copula verbs such as sein 'be', werden 'become', bleiben 'remain'. This presupposes that the case of the predicative is assigned via government (cf. Comrie (1997) for arguments in favour of this assumption). 20 In fact, in order to let 20, i.e. the pattern with two accusatives, win over 21, i.e. the pattern with two nominatives, one has to postulate that DIST-NOM dominates DIST-ACC (cf. Primus 1999, Stiebels 2002). 21 Seefranz-Montag (1983) offers a cross-linguistic overview of the loss of case patterns without a nominative.

22 main declarative clauses (verb-second constraint). The more specific constraint requires the placement of topics in this position.22 The language defined by the ranking (32) can roughly be characterized as semantically and discourse-functionally more transparent than Modern German. The effect of FULL-INT-ARG >> 1C! can be shown for rain, a verb without a thematic argument (as indicated by the empty brackets), in a construction without a topic in Tab. 7: Tab. 7 Input: regenen() )regenot nicht mé iz regenot nicht mé

FULL-INT-ARG

1C! *

*!

TOP/SPEC-V2 can be neglected in Tab. 7, as there is no topic to be placed in Spec-V2. The effect of TOP/SPEC-V2, LEX-Amin/¬1C, FULL-INT-ARG >> 1C! can be illustrated with the intransitive experiencer verbs denoting bodily sensations such as friosan 'feel cold', hungaren 'be hungry' and thursten 'be thirsty'. They fall under the lexical constraint LEX-Aexp/ ACC in OHG, cf. Tab. 8:23 Tab. 8 Input: thursten(x) x = Topic, Aexp )mih thursta thursta mih iz thursta mih

FULL-INTARG

LEX-Aexp/ACC TOP/SPEC-V2

1C!

(friosan, hungaren, thursten)

* *!

*! *!

A rather early development, starting before the first written texts, was that the nominative expletive ez/iz 'it' emerged, first in Spec-V2 and later in other positions as well (cf. e.g. Lenerz 1985, Ebert 1986: 29f.). This can be taken as evidence that FULL-INT-ARG was gradually demoted and that TOP/SPEC-V2 was gradually generalized to SPEC-V2, which bans verb-first main declarative clauses altogether. This stage is illustrated in (33a): (33)

(a) iz ist gescrîban fona thir, thaz ... (Otfrid II,4,57) 'It is written about you that ...' (b) nist thir iz sorga, thaz (Tatian 63, 3) 'There is no worry for you that ...'

(33b) shows that the expletive nominative was occasionally used after the verb and that SPECV2 was still violable (under the plausible assumption that the proclitic negation n- is not a

22

An alternative explanation of the historical facts can be achieved if SPEC-V2 is replaced by a constraint (cf. Jacobs 1994b) that requires at least one syntactic argument for each verbal predicate in the unmarked voice (passives and imperatives violate this constraint). But note that this constraint cannot explain the word order facts, which are captured better by SPEC-V2. 23 A comparison between weather verbs without a thematic argument and experiencer verbs with one oblique argument reveals the difference between the logically stronger constraint 1C! and the weaker constraint *[OBL&¬1C]. The candidate regenot nicht mé only violates the stronger constraint; mih thursta violates the weaker constraint as well. In order to be operative, *[OBL&¬1C] has to dominate 1C!. Languages with this ranking (e.g. Italian, Rumanian) have weather verbs without a nominative expletive (cf. Ital. piove, Rum. plouâ 'it rains'), but ban experiencer verbs without a nominative even if the experiencer is in an oblique case (cf. Ital. mi (acc) fa freddo (nom), Rum. îmi (dat) este frig (nom) 'I feel cold'). An ergative language with this ranking is Basque (Saltarelli 1988: 63f., 146f.).

23 syntactic constituent in Spec-V2).24 With the beginning of the Middle High German (MHG) period, the situation found in Modern German gradually developed. All verbs without a thematic argument such as regnen excluding passives and imperatives - took an obligatory nominative expletive, which, due to its obligativity, was also used in a postverbal position. Some of the one-place verbs with an oblique experiencer were used with an optional nominative expletive. The situation in Modern German is captured by the following constraint ranking (cf. also (24)): (34)

Modern German: SPEC-V2, LEX-Amin/¬1C >> 1C! >> FULL-INT-ARG

The effect of the demotion of FULL-INT-ARG relative to SPEC-V2 and 1C! is shown with regnen 'rain' in main declarative clauses in Tab. 9: Tab. 9 Input: regnen() Regnet heute. Heute regnet. )Heute regnet es. )Es regnet heute.

SPEC-V2

1C!

*!

* *!

FULL-INT-ARG

* *

So far, we have seen that the Nominative-Requirement, a formal markedness constraint, has gained a higher relative rank due to the demotion of the faithfulness constraint FULL-INT-ARG. But a strengthening of the Nominative-Requirement is also attested relative to competing thematic constraints. This is shown with frieren 'feel cold' in Tab. 10 (all candidates obey SPEC-V2): Tab. 10 Input: frieren(x) x = Aexp Mich friert. )Mich friert es.

LEX-Aexp/ACC (frieren, hungern, dürsten)

1C!

FULL-INT-ARG

*! *

The winner obeys the lexical parochial constraint for accusative experiencers as well as the Nominative-Requirement but violates semantic faithfulness to the argument structure of the predicate. There is also a more optimal candidate without such a violation: friosan, hungaren and thursten had a valency variant with a nominative experiencer from the very beginning of the documented history of German. The most optimal change was the elimination of the variant with the oblique experiencer. This means that the number of lexemes falling under LEX-Aexp/ACC decreased while the number of lexemes satisfying the NominativeRequirement increased. Another pertinent change in the history of German is the decline of the verbal genetive. In earlier and modern stages of German, the genetive expresses a Proto-Patient. In OHG and MHG, the patient could either be a volitionally, physically affected participant, as shown with the genetive object of drink in (35a), or a less affected patient, as shown in (35b): (35)

24

(a) ni drenk ih thes gimachon. (Otfrid II,8,52) 'I have not drunk of the same (wine) (gen)'

Verb-first main declaratives violating SPEC-V2 still exist in Modern German, though only in stylistically highly marked contexts, e.g. certain types of narrative.

24 (b) thaz wib thaz thero duro sah (Otfrid IV,18,6) 'the woman who saw the door (gen)' Many verbs, including those illustrated in (35), allowed an alternation of the genetive with the accusative. The exact semantic function of this alternation is still a matter of debate.25 No matter what the exact nature of it is, the genetive was restricted to arguments with ProtoPatient properties and could be selected for controlled and physically manipulated patients. This situation is captured in (36): (36)

Genetive Constraint in OHG and MHG: GEN/P = ¬P/¬GEN

In Modern German, a controlled and physically manipulated patient cannot be expressed by the genetive or dative (cf. Primus 1999b). Recall that the constraint involving the specified maximal patient Pctrl,phys/ACC is violable only if accusative selection is generally blocked, as in the passive. Even for minimal patients, the genetive is unproductive in Modern German and is only selected by ca. 50 verbs. Another change that has to be taken into consideration is that the restriction of datives to arguments with minimal agentive properties DAT/Amin was weaker in OHG and MHG than in Modern German. In other words, the functional variability of the dative was greater. On the basis of these preliminary assumptions, the case variation allowed by psych-verbs in OHG and MHG is shown in Tab. 11 and Tab. 12: Tab. 11 )1 )2 )3 )4 )5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

25

x = Aexp y = Pexp nom acc acc nom nom dat dat nom nom gen gen nom gen acc gen dat acc gen dat gen acc dat dat acc nom nom acc acc dat dat gen gen

DIST

*! *! *! *!

1C! (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*) *(*) *(*)

¬P/¬GEN Amin/¬1C Amin/1C * * * * * *! * *! * *! * * * * * * * * * *

Some argue for a partitive function of the genetive (e.g. Grimm 1837), others view this partitive function as an epiphenomenon of its function to express irresultativity or imperfectivity (Donhauser 1991, Leiss 1991) and indefiniteness (Leiss 1991). Yet others (cf. Erdmann 1876, Schrodt 1996) claim that the genetive was used for objects that exist independently of the situation denoted by the verb.

25

Tab. 12 )1 )2 )3 )4 )5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

x = Aexp y = Pexp nom acc acc nom nom dat dat nom nom gen gen nom gen acc gen dat acc gen dat gen acc dat dat acc nom nom acc acc dat dat gen gen

DIST

*! *! *! *!

1C! (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*) *(*) *(*)

¬P/¬GEN Pmin/¬2C Pmin/2C * * * * * *! * *! * *! * * * * * * * * * *

The higher ranking constraint DIST eliminates the candidates 13-16. They are, indeed, not attested. The weaker competing thematic constraints for Amin and for Pmin are tied and determine complementary patterns leaving the competition to be decided by the NominativeRequirement and the thematic Genetive Constraint, irrespective of their rank (cf. dotted line). Thus, it does not matter whether ¬P/¬GEN eliminates the candidates 6-8 at a later stage of the evaluation (as shown in Tab. 11 and Tab. 12) or earlier. These candidates are intrinsic losers relative to the constraints at issue. This also holds for 1C! and the candidates 7-12. Since all candidates that are still in competition violate 1C! once, this violation can be cancelled by the Mark Cancellation Convention, as indicated by the brackets. Examples for the attested candidates are the following (unless the first attested occurence is in MHG, the OHG form is given): 1 (nomx\accy): ahtôn 'think, believe', bigrîfan 'understand', denken, thenken 'think, understand', forhten 'fear', frewen 'be glad about', frowôn 'be glad about', gerôn 'strive for, desire', gilouben 'believe', hazzôn 'hate', hôren 'hear', kennen 'know', minnôn 'love', (h)riuwan, riuwen 'feel sorry about, regret', wânen 'believe, hold true', wizzen 'know', wuntâron 'wonder', wunsgen, wunschen 'want, desire' 2 (accx\nomy): anen 'have a presentiment, foresee', dunken, thunken 'believe, imagine', riuwen 'distress', ruoren 'move psychically', thwingan 'plague, distress' 3 (nomx\daty): frewen 'be glad about', frowôn 'be glad about', goumen 'take heed', kenâden 'have mercy', milten 'feel mercy, compassion' 4 (datx\nomy): anen 'have a presentiment, foresee', lîhhên 'like', dunken, thunken 'believe, imagine', zeman 'like, be appropriate' 5 (nomx\geny): denken, thenken 'think, understand', fergezzen 'forget', frewen 'be glad about', frowôn 'be glad about', gerôn 'strive for, desire', goumen 'take heed', gilouben 'believe', kenâden 'have mercy', lustôn 'want, feel like', milten 'feel mercy, compassion', (fir)missan 'miss', wânen 'believe, hold true', wunsgen, wunschen 'want, desire' 9 (accx\geny): bidriezen 'feel sad about', grûwen, grûsen 'shudder, feel uneasy about', jâmern 'feel sorrow, grieve', langen 'desire, long for', (gi)lusten 'want, feel like', wuntâr sîn 'wonder' 10 (datx\geny): [brestan 'lack'], grûwen, grûsen 'shudder, be reluctant'

26

There are verbs that allow a case pattern without a nominative, but their number is very small. This is obvious from Greule's (1999) valency dictionary that is based on a complete corpus analysis of the 9th century texts. In this corpus, only the following verbs are attested: (gi)brestan 'lack' (datx\geny), (gi)lîhhên 'like' (datx\PPy or datx\nomy), (gi)lusten 'want, feel like' (accx\geny) and, among the one-place verbs, hungaren 'feel hungry' (acc or nom) and thursten 'feel thristy' (acc or nom). Although brestan 'lack' is not a psych-verb proper, it is mentioned here in order to complete the list of verbs that allowed a case pattern without a nominative in Greule's corpus. As indicated, several verbs had a case variant with a nominative. If one takes further sources for OHG and MHG into consideration (e.g. Lexer 1872-1878, Erdmann 1876, Behaghel 1923: 571f., 614f., 694f,; 1924: 128f., Schützeichel 1969), one can add a few more verbs, as shown in the list for the candidates 9 and 10. This means that the exceptional candidates 9 and 10 are best captured by a lexical parochial constraint. By contrast, the winning candidates 1-5 are not only more numerous (the list from above only offers a selection of verbs), but also productive. With the exception of candidates 3 and 5, which became obsolete due to the strengthening of the Dative Constraint and the loss of the adverbal genetive in German, more and more lexemes were added to the candidate lists 1, 2 and 4 in the course of time. In sum, the situation attested in OHG and MHG can be captured by the following constraints and their indicated relative rank: DIST >> FULL-INT-ARG >> LEX-Amin/¬1C, LEX-Amin/¬1C & LEX-Pmin/¬1C >> 1C! ¬P/¬GEN Amin/¬1C Amin/1C Pmin/¬2C Pmin/2C The relative rank of the constraints is as specified above. If it is not indicated, it is not crucial, in principle. However, taking learnability considerations into account, it is plausible to assume that inviolable constraints, or constraints that only tolerate lexical parochial exceptions, such as ¬P/¬GEN and 1C!, are very reliable constraints that eliminate candidates as soon as possible. The main relevant changes leading to the Modern German system are the loss of the adverbal genetive, the fact that a double violation of the Nominative-Requirement does not tolerate any lexical exceptions, the demotion of FULL-INT-ARG and the higher rank of the Dative Constraint. The relevant constraints for Modern German and the crucial rankings are summarized as follows: DIST >> LEX-Pmin/GEN >> *GEN LEX-Amin/¬1C >> 1C! >> FULL-INT-ARG LEX-[¬Amin&DAT] >> ¬Amin/¬DAT Amin/¬1C Amin/1C Pmin/¬2C Pmin/2C The effect of the demotion of FULL-INT-ARG was discussed above. Tab. 13 shows the effect of the other relevant changes:

27

Tab. 13 )1 )2 3 )4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

x = Aexp nom acc nom dat nom gen gen gen acc dat acc dat nom acc dat gen

y = Pexp acc nom dat nom gen nom acc dat gen gen dat acc nom acc dat gen

DIST

*GEN

*! *! *! *! *! *! * * * *

**

1C! (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*)! *(*) *(*) *(*)

¬Amin/¬DAT

*!

* *

*

The constraints mentioned in Tab. 13 suffice to delimit the range of case variation for psychverbs in Modern German. The thematic constraints for Amin and Pmin license complementary sets of candidates and are, therefore, not decisive, as shown for OHG and MHG in Tab. 11 and Tab. 12. The relative rank of the general Genetive Constraint *GEN and of the Nominative-Requirement is not crucial. The candidates 1, 2 and 4 will win irrespective of their relative rank. They are the only candidates that do not violate any constraint fatally, under the plausible assumption that a single violation of 1C! is not fatal with polyvalenced verbs. Candidate 5 with a genetive stimulus is attested as a relic of older stages (cf. Tab. 12 and Tab. 13), but is obsolete in Modern German (e.g. der Toten gedenken 'honour the dead (gen)' and der Mitfahrenden achten 'consider the fellow travellers (gen)'). These verbs are best captured by a parochial lexical constraint. The same holds for the pattern with a dative stimulus (candidate 3), e.g. jemandem (ver)trauen 'to trust somebody', dem Wein zugetan sein, 'to be devoted to wine', der Bergtour entgegensehen 'to look forward to / to await the mountain tour' (cf. also entgegenfiebern / entgegenbangen 'to expect feaverishly / fearfully'). The verbs with the particle entgegen'towards each other, against' can be explained by the fact that in its semantically transparent reading, entgegen- (e.g. entgegenlaufen 'run to meet', entgegeneilen 'rush to meet') selects a dative in conformity with the Dative Constraint. An explanation of the impact of the lexicon entry for entgegen- on its use with psych-verbs will be offered in section 9 below. The remaining candidates are highly productive (cf. Klein / Kutscher, this volume): 1 (nomx\accy): bedauern 'feel sorry for', hassen 'hate', lieben 'love', kennen 'know, be acquainted with', lieben 'love', mögen 'like', sehen 'see', schätzen 'appreciate', wissen 'know something', wünschen 'wish' 2 (accx\nomy): bedrücken 'depress', deprimieren 'depress', inspirieren 'inspire', interessieren, 'be interested in', jucken 'itch to do', langweilen 'be bored at', kratzen 'bother about', reizen 'provoke sb.', wundern 'wonder' 4 (datx\nomy): auffallen 'attract attention', behagen 'like', dämmern 'dawn on sb.', gefallen 'like', missfallen 'dislike', nutzen 'be of advantage to sb.', nahegehen 'affect', schmecken 'like, be tasty', schwerfallen 'be difficult to sb.' In contrast to earlier stages a double violation of the Nominative-Requirement is not even tolerated as a lexical exception in Modern German, considering only cases in the narrower

28 sense. The only two-place verb that is commonly used without a nominative is grauen 'feel uneasy about, shudder'. It selects a dative experiencer and a prepositional stimulus, cf. (37): (37) Zwar graute ihr vor dem Gespräch mit ihm, aber sie hätte es doch gern hinter sich gebracht. (Charlotte Link, Die Täuschung, p. 378)26 'She (dat) felt uneasy about talking to him, but she wanted to bring it to an end.' The difference between one-place and two-place verbs is obvious. As late as the 18th century, the following patterns without a nominative were productive: mich ruht / schwitzt / scheißert / brunzert / kotzert 'I (acc) feel an urge to rest / sweat / shit / piss / vomit' (Ebert 1986: 31). As noted in section 6 above (cf. 24)), the one-place experiencer predicates including adjective+copula are still used without a nominative in Modern German. These one-place verbs incur only one violation of 1C!; however, two-place verbs without a nominative violate 1C! twice. In other words, it is more severe not to select a nominative when there are two arguments that semantically qualify for it. In sum, the Nominative-Requirement imposes severe restrictions on case selection as early as OHG. Its increased impact is manifest from the fact that one of its semantic antagonists, FULL-INT-ARG, has been demoted. As a consequence of this reranking, weather verbs, which have no thematic argument, have acquired an obligatory nominative expletive. Verbs with at least one thematic argument and no nominative, notably psych-verbs, are best captured as lexical exceptions as early as OHG. But even in competition with parochial thematic constraints that license case patterns without a nominative, the NominativeRequirement shows an increased impact. The number of verbs falling under these lexical parochial constraints has decreased considerably. The only still productive lexical domain is the adjective+copula construction in its psychical reading (cf. Tab. 4 above). There are two ways to explain the increased impact of the Nominative-Requirement on case selection in the history of German. The first one takes the rationale for this markedness constraint as an ultimate cause of the development under discussion. The premise of OT markedness constraints, to which the Nominative-Requirement belongs, is a markedness hierarchy, i.e. a case hierarchy in this particular case.27 Without the impact of competing semantic constraints, these formal constraints will ultimately lead to complete case syncretism and case loss. At the end of this development, only the first case of the hierarchy, the nominative, will survive. This goes hand in hand with a grammaticalization of the higher ranking cases and of the nominative in particular, both formally (loss of case markers) and functionally (loss of functional transparency). The generalization of the verb-second constraint SPEC-V2 to non-topics (cf. Seefranz-Montag (1983) in informal terms and Lenerz (1985) in terms of generative grammar) has enhanced the need of expletive arguments with weather verbs in particular. This is a plausible explanation for the rise of expletives in SpecV2 and the demotion of FULL-INT-ARG, a semantic faithfulness constraint that competes with the Nominative-Requirement. But note that Case Markedness is needed in order to explain 26

All tokens of grauen in this novel are used in this valency variant. There is also a variant with an optional nominative expletive. 27 Seefranz-Montag (1983: 18f.) takes an increased hierarchization of cases in Ide. into consideration, but she does not make this idea more precise, for instance by formulating the case hierarchy and case selection principles that make use of it. Furthermore, she considers the case hierarchy an epiphenomenon of the general principle of formal economy (1983: 21). The same line of argumentation is found within OT. Some linguists prefer to derive the case hierarchy from a postulated fixed ranking of case markedness constraints (e.g. Fanselow 2000). In the present paper, the hierarchy is postulated first and the fixed ranking of constraints is derived from it. The reason for this option is that the hierarchy serves as a basis for a wide range of phenomena that go far beyond case selection. Note that a case system with an unordered set of cases is difficult to acquire and that a case hierarchy is mirrored in the course of case acquisition (cf. Primus 1999a: 28f.). Languages without such a hierarchy seem to exist (e.g. Guarani, cf. Primus 1999a 94f.). Guarani uses only a two-way distinction of lexically assigned agreement markers instead of cases and only one agreement slot per predicate.

29 that the expletive has to be in the nominative. This line of explanation only considers formal factors as an ultimate cause of this development. The ranking of the thematic constraints licensing oblique experiencers or other oblique minimal agents is not affected by this development. This is obvious from the fact that oblique experiencers and other patterns with an oblique minimal agent (cf. (39a) below) are very productive in Modern German as long as they do not violate the Nominative-Requirement. But there are also linguists who offered a semantic-cognitive explanation for the loss of constructions without the nominative (cf. Posner 1984) whereby these changes are viewed as a consequence of a more rational or impersonal conceptualization of the world. This view has been criticized in past research with convincing arguments (cf. Wegener 1999 with particular reference to psych-verbs) that can be formulated more precisely in terms of the thematic constraints introduced in the present paper. The cognitive scenario can be captured by taking the demotion of the relevant semantic constraints, Amin/¬1C in particular, as an ultimate cause. This demotion will automatically lead to a relative enhancement of the NominativeRequirement. The cognitive scenario suggests that this demotion is triggered by a semantic shift in the conceptualization of minimal agents as controllers of the situation. This semantic change can be formalized as Amin > Amax in the present Proto-Role framework. In this event, the semantically shifted verbs will fall under Amax/1C; LEX-Amin/¬1C will become obsolete. There is some evidence that such a semantic shift might be at issue. Cf. (38), where # signals a semantic anomaly: (38)

(a) #Mich hungert, weil ich abnehmen will. 'I (acc) feel hungry because I want to slim down.' (b) Ich hungere, weil ich abnehmen will. 'I (nom) feel hungry because I want to slim down.

The construction with the nominative experiencer (38b) has a simple experiencer reading as well as a controller experiencer reading which the accusative experiencer construction (38a) lacks. A similar situation is illustrated in (39) with an activity verb: (39)

(a) #Mir ist die Vase (un)absichtlich zerbrochen. 'I (dat) broke the vase (in)advertently.' (b) Ich habe die Vase (un)absichtlich zerbrochen. 'I (nom) broke the vase (in)advertently.'

The problem of the generalized cognitive explanation for the loss of constructions without a nominative is apparent in (39): the dative construction that lacks the control reading is the more recent development (cf. Schmid 1988). The same problem arises if one considers the numerous recent lexical innovations that demonstrate the productivity of the verb class falling under Amin/¬1C, e.g. mir ist mulmig zumute / kalt / schlecht 'I (dat) feel nauseous / cold / sick', mich kratzt / juckt das nicht 'I (acc) do not bother about that' (cf. also Klein / Kutscher, this volume). These predicates lack a control reading. As shown by Wegener (1999) for Modern German, the lexemes falling under Aexp/¬1C are more numerous than those that obey Aexp/1C. The situation attested for OHG in the 9th century is the opposite, although Greule's (1999) corpus is too limited for a firm conclusion: the verbs selecting Aexp/1C were more numerous than those selecting Aexp/¬1C. The impressive number of lexical innovations that have increased the class of lexemes falling under Aexp/¬1C refute the assumption of a general cognitive shift, which is needed in order to explain the general and uncontroversial promotion of the Nominative-Requirement. The appeal of the general cognitive shift is also weakened by the following argument. An oblique case blocks the control interpretation for the argument in question due to the fact that

30 Actrl/1C is inviolable in German, at least in the lexical domain that is at issue here (cf. Seefranz-Montag 1983: 69f. for earlier stages).28 Therefore, it is implausible to assume that a verb may acquire the control reading first and then change the oblique into the nominative. In contrast, the nominative violates neither Amin/1C nor Amax/1C. In other words, the nominative is semantically more flexible than an oblique in terms of control. Thus, the control reading is best seen as the consequence (and not as the source) of the shift from oblique to nominative. In sum, an OT implementation can formalize the mechanism that leads to the loss of constructions without a nominative and thus, contribute towards a more precise evaluation of the general causal explanations for this loss. But there are still open questions. Given the fact that minimal agents and patients in general and psych-verbs in particular, allow a considerable amount of case variation not only cross-linguistically but also in one and the same language, the question arises how the different case patterns are distributed among verb lexemes. Another question refers to the role of lexical meaning variation for case selection. An answer to these questions is sketched in the next section (cf. Klein / Kutscher, this volume, for an elaboration).

9 Meaning variation and paradigmatic lexical constraints The impact of meaning variation on argument linking and case selection has been rarely dealt with in the literature. Given the fact that, in general, verbs have several readings in terms of role semantics, it is unclear what this means for case selection. Let us illustrate the problem with the paradigmatic semantic variation of the verb give illustrated in (40): (40)

(a) Peter gab ihr einen Apfel. 'Peter gave her an apple.' (b) Peter gab ihr Geld. 'Peter gave her money.' (c) Dieses Geld gab ihr neue Hoffnung. Lit. 'This money gave her new hope.' (d) Peter gab der Tür einen Tritt. 'Peter gave the door a bang (lit. a kick).'

(40a) implies a physical manipulation of the third participant; in (40b) the physical component is optional if one considers a bank transfer as an option. In (40c) it is absent altogether and in (40d) it is present only relative to the second participant. As to control, (40a,b,d) are plausibly assumed to have this implication, but (40c) only denotes an uncontrolled situation. This meaning variation has to be captured in the lexical entry of the lexeme give. Note that verbs such as murder, interrogate and nominate lack the variablity in terms of control and that other verbs such as touch, move and kiss lack the variability in terms of physical manipulation. Furthermore, move (e.g. Mary was moved to tears by this) has a psychical reading, which kiss lacks, if we ignore non-conventionalized metaphoric uses. Finally, the role-semantic interpretation of (40c,d) is idiomatic, i.e. non-compositional. The third argument, e.g. Hoffnung 'hope' and Tritt 'kick', crucially contributes to the identification of the kind of situation denoted by the verb, whereas the verb lexeme is semantically bleached. As the examples show, the different readings are expressed by the same case pattern, which suggests that there is a general tendency to express different readings by the same case pattern. In the present approach, this is captured by the following lexicon economy constraint and its application to the case patterns in the valency entry of a lexeme: 28

AcI-constructions with a controller in the accusative (cf. Fn. 17) are not at issue here.

31

(41)

(a) Lexicon Economy (LEX-EC): Minimize lexical entries.29 (b) Case-Pattern Economy (LEX-EC-CASE): Minimize the number of case patterns in the valency entry of a lexeme.

(41b) is a formal economy constraint that competes with functional expressivity constraints. In other words, a language in which LEX-EC-CASE is of a relatively high rank (within a specified domain) will not express the different readings of give by case. The opposite type of language would be a language with a 'fluid' case linking, a term introduced by Dixon (1979) for languages such as Bats (=Tsova Tush), in which in certain domains, i.e. intransitive verbs in certain person categories, different readings in terms of control are expressed by ergative vs. nominative case. LEX-EC-CASE has no role-semantic competitor if the only case pattern selected is licensed for each reading. In order to keep the amount of linking options manageable, only cases in the narrower sense, but no adpositions, are considered in the following. Let us see how this works for the illustrated readings of give in German. As seen in Tab. 5 and Tab. 6 above, the winner for the reading that accumulates the greatest number of ProtoRole entailments is nomx\daty\accz. This reading will be called the strongest reading. The strongest reading Actrl,phys and Pctrl,phys is needed in order to eliminate competing candidates. As mentioned in section 7 above, the pattern nomx\accy\accz is also selected by some ditransitive verbs such as lehren 'teach', abfragen 'test somebody on something', fragen 'ask somebody something' and bitten 'ask / request something from somebody'. None of these verbs has a Pctrl,phys-implication. This suggests that the psychical reading in (40c) and the reading (40d), where the second argument instead of the third one bears this implication, may in principle select the double accusative construction. But for the psychical reading, the dative-accusative pattern is also optimal. Therefore, in compliance with LEX-EC-CASE, the pattern nomx\daty\accz will be selected for every reading. The idiomatic reading (40d) has a special status because it involves a competition between lexicon economy and a thematic constraint. (40d) is an admittedly rare example of a violation of Pctrl,phys/ACC, a constraint that is otherwise inviolable in basic (non-passive) clauses in German. This shows that LEX-EC-CASE may occasionally win over inviolable constraints. LEX-EC-CASE also helps to find a leading thread in the seemingly unsystematic distribution of the case patterns of psych-verbs in German (cf. Klein / Kutscher, this volume). Let us illustrate this with verbs selecting a dative stimulus in Modern German. Recall that these verbs violate the Dative Constraint ¬A/¬DAT, as they select the dative for the stimulus and not for the experiencer. Only the verbs with the particle entgegen- are productive in this class, e.g. der Bergtour entgegensehen 'to look forward to the mountain tour' (cf. also entgegenfiebern / entgegenbangen 'to expect feaverishly / fearfully'). This use of the particle entgegen- 'towards each other, against' is semantically opaque, but in their transparent reading, verbs with entgegen- presuppose an event in which both participants are involved as agents. Thus, for example entgegenlaufen 'run to meet' refers to a situation in which the two participants move towards each other. The agentivity of the second participant may be maximal with respect to the presupposed event, but relative to entgegenlaufen it is not. For the psych-verbs with entgegen-, LEX-EC-CASE beats ¬A/¬DAT and forces the case pattern with the dative in analogy to the semantically transparent uses of this particle. In sum, LEX-ECCASE may beat thematic constraints, particularly when idiomatic readings are involved.

29

This type of lexicon economy constraint and analogical levelling have clear parallels that are not further discussed here.

32 Another illustration of the impact of LEX-EC-CASE can be shown with the case variation involving two-place verbs. Cf. (42)-(40): (42)

(a) Peter unterstützt / kritisiert / preist dich (acc) / eine gute Sache (acc). 'Peter supports / criticizes / praises you / a good thing.' Peter ruft dich / etwas. 'Peter calls you / something' (b) Peter hilft / applaudiert / dankt / dir (dat) / *einer guten Sache (dat). 'Peter helps / applauds / thanks you / a good thing.'

(43)

(a) *Peter unterstützt dich eine gute Sache. (b) *Peter hilft dir eine gute Sache.

The verbs in (42a) have two readings. In the first reading, the second argument is agentive, in the second reading, the second argument lacks agentive properties.30 The verbs in (42b) have this second reading only. (43) shows that the two interpretations are in a paradigmatic relation; i.e., they hold for the same argument slot. Let us discuss the second reading first. This reading presupposes an event in which the second participant is independently involved as an agent. The agentivity with respect to this event may be maximal, but relative to the verb unterstützen or helfen 'help, support', for instance, it is not. The argument in question is also a minimal patient because it is affected by the first participant: the outcome of the presupposed event crucially depends on the first participant. This means that y is Amin\Pmin, as specified. This type of argument falls under two weak tied constraints: Amin/DAT (cf. the stronger Dative Constraint ¬Amin/¬DAT (30)) and Pmin/ACC (cf. the ranking for acusative constructions (11)). This is shown in Tab. 14: Tab. 14 helfen(x,y) unterstützen(x,y) y = Amin\Pmin )unterstützt / hilft ihr )unterstützt / hilft sie

Amin/DAT

Pmin/ACC

* *

Tab. 14 demonstrates that verbs with this reading may in principle select the dative or the accusative for their second argument. The potential dative-accusative variation for the verb class which help belongs to is corroborated by language acquisition data (cf. Wegener 1995) as well as by the fact that passive variants that presuppose an underlying accusative are attested (e.g. sie werden geholfen 'you (nom) are helped'). It is also corroborated by the attested diachronic dative/accusative-alternation for helfen. The crucial difference between unterstützen, kritisieren and preisen, on the one hand, and helfen, applaudieren and danken, on the other hand, is the fact that the former, but not the latter have a reading in which the second argument lacks agentive properties. This reading lacks the agentive component that licenses the dative. Cf. Tab. 15:

30

In older varieties of German, loben 'praise' belonged to this class. A residue of its use with a second nonagentive participant is das gelobte Land 'the praised land' in Modern German. In Modern German, this use is obsolete, cf. Peter lobt dich / *eine gute Sache 'Peter praises you / a good thing'.

33

Tab. 15 unterstützen(x,y) y = Pmin unterstützt der Sache )unterstützt die Sache

¬Amin/¬DAT

Pmin/ACC

*

*

Now LEX-EC-CASE kicks in, takes different semantic subentries of the lexeme unterstützen as input and blocks case variation. For unterstützen, the result is clear: the accusative pattern will win because it is licensed by all relevant constraints. Cf. Tab. 13: Tab. 16 unterstützen(x,y) both readings unterstützt dir / die Sache unterstützt dir / der Sache )unterstützt dich / die Sache

LEX-EC-CASE

Losers - thematic constraints

PAR-DIST

der Sache!

* *

*

Leaving the last constraint in Tab. 15 and Tab. 16 aside for the moment, the result for help is less clear. Cf. Tab. 17: Tab. 17 helfen(x,y) one reading hilft dir / dich hilft dich )hilft dir

LEX-EC-CASE

Losers - thematic constraints

PAR-DIST

* *

Let us now turn to PAR-DIST. Following Plank (1987), two functional expressivity constraints have to be dissociated. The syntagmatic one has only one lexeme reading as input and takes care that different co-occurring role-semantic functions are expressed by different cases. It is captured by DIST above. Recall that languages with DIST >> *DAT >> *ACC license the dative in ditransitive constructions (cf. Tab. 6 above for German). The other functional expressivity constraint is paradigmatic. Let us call it PAR-DIST. It takes care that two lexical entries with different role-semantic functions have different case patterns. Unterstützen and helfen, for instance, are such verbs. PAR-DIST lets the dative pattern win for helfen because it discriminates it from unterstützen, which has at least one pertinent different reading. Note that PAR-DIST also licenses case variation for the two readings of unterstützen. In a 'fluid' case system, where LEX-EC-CASE is lower in rank in some domains, case variation is expected to occur in these domains. Seefranz-Montag (1983: 24f.), among others, claimed that earlier stages of German were generally more 'fluid' in the sense discussed here: different readings of a verb lexeme were more readily differenciated by case than in Modern German. Good examples are hôren 'hear' with the accusative and 'obey' or 'listen to' with the dative, or sehan 'see' with the accusative and 'take care, watch over' with the genetive. The genetive-accusative alternation, which was tied to systematic semantic differences as mentioned above, could also be mentioned here. With the experiencer of psych-verbs, the accusative alternated both synchronically and diachronically with the dative without a palpable difference in meaning (cf. Seefranz-Montag 1983: 162). The assumption that the earlier system was globally more fluid is questionable. It is more appropriate to claim that the lexical domains where case variation for a lexeme is tolerated have changed. Thus, for instance, in Modern German, case variation between the nominative and the dative (cf. (39a,b) above) as well as alternations between cases and adpositions (cf. Ickler 1990) are a productive, more recent phenomenon.

34 This clearly shows that the lexical paradigmatic constraints introduced in this section are restricted to specified lexical domains and that they do not have a rank that can be fixed globally relative to the entire valency lexicon of a language. Despite the empirical difficulty to assess their relative rank and to specify the relevant domain appropriately, they are a type of constraints on case selection that deserves consideration. In contrast to the constraints discussed in the previous sections, the paradigmatic constraints take various lexical entries as input and capture the competition between the tendency to express thematic paradigmatic distinctions and the tendency to minimize the case patterns for a lexeme. They also help to understand case patterns that are not readily explained by role-semantic or case markedness constraints (cf. Klein / Kutscher, this volume, for an elaboration).

10 Conclusion The case selection approach pursued here is lexicalist and non-structural in the following sense. Although case selection has been shown to be determined by various factors, including formal markedness, linking thematic roles to cases was not mediated by structure, as proposed within generative grammar for structural cases. According to the assumption defended this option exists for some languages with highly grammaticalized cases such as English. In case systems such as German, cases are directly linked to thematic roles, as shown in the paper. Even in this type of language, formal markedness constraints interfere with thematic constraints. They are responsible for phenomena that are also found in languages with structural cases: the generalization of the nominative in all clauses and of the accusative in transitive clauses and, as a consequence, the functional opacity of these cases. Thus, it is obvious that case markedness constraints in OT and structural case principles in generative grammar show a considerable overlap. The most general argument for the differentiation of languages with and without structural cases is the functional difference between case and structure, which was marginally dealt with in the present paper (cf. Primus 1999a, 2002b in greater detail). But in German, there is also grammatical evidence against structural case assignment (cf. e.g. Haider 1985, 1993 within generative grammar and Primus (2002a) within the present approach with special reference to psych-verbs). Furthermore, there is neurolinguistic evidence that the assignment of the nominative and accusative is mediated by structure in English (cf. Coulson / King / Kutas 1998), but not in German (cf. Frisch 2000, Frisch / Schlesewsky 2001). The present paper offered an OT formalization of a modified version of Dowty's ProtoRole approach. A particular concern was the hypothesis that the distinction between a maximally involved agent or patient, θmax, and a minimally involved one, θmin, is crucial for case linking. The varying degree of involvement is captured by a varying number of entailments that a verbal lexical entry determines for one of its arguments. This information was abbreviated in the Involvement Scale θmax > θmin. In contrast, structural linking is sensitive to another dimension of role semantics that was captured in terms of semantic dependency and that was discussed in greater detail in other publications (see above). The relevance of the Involvement Scale, θmax > θmin, and the Case Hierarchy, 1C > 2C > other oblique C, for case selection was made more precise in terms of Optimaliy Theory by a fixed ranking of constraints that is derived from these scales and their harmonic alignment. An important question for any linking theory is how well it captures the typological variation in terms of ergative, accusative and split intransitive (active) linking and their characteristic properties. As shown in the paper, the ergative-accusative distinction emerges when the two θmax-roles are linked to the first two cases of a language. These are the highest ranking thematic constraints. Since there are exactly two θmax-roles, maximal agent or maximal patient, either of them qualifies for the first case of a language so that two inverse

35 ranking options arise. On the basis of these assumptions, the characteristic properties of ergative constructions are readily explained. Ergativity is basically a morphological, i.e. casebased, phenomenon that is frequently attested and that is most clearly manifest in the constellation Amax & Pmax. In contrast, structural-syntactic ergativity is rarely attested and presupposes morphological ergativity. Furthermore, morphological split ergativity in the strict typological sense is never dependent on the choice of the verb lexeme; such an option is not allowed by the inverse ranking hypothesis for the two θmax-roles. Thematic constraints were supplemented by formal case selection constraints such as the Nominative-Requirement and by Case Distinctness. The competition between the Nominative-Requirement and the thematic constraints that license an oblique case for the only argument of an intransitive verb yields the typological variation known as split intransitivity (or active-inactive). This competion allows lexeme-bound variation that has to be captured by lexical parochial constraints. The ranking variation of the Nominative-Requirement relative to competing functional constraints was also illustrated with diachronic data, i.e. the decline of case patterns without a nominative in the history of German. In contrast to the pattern of variation for Amax & Pmax, which is severely restricted and never dependent on the choice of the lexeme, the pattern of variation for θmin-roles is less restricted because the thematic constraints for these roles are intrinsically lower in rank. As a consequence, they compete more readily with other case constraints and with each other. This was shown for ditransitive predicates and the competition between the constraint linking the dative to minimal agents (e.g. Proto-Recipients) and Case Distinctness. As expected, the case of the Proto-Recipient varies from lexeme to lexeme within one language and crosslinguistically. Lexeme-bound variation also occurs when thematic constraints for θmin-roles compete with each other, as shown for psych-verbs in German. The pattern of variation for θmin-roles turns out to be less idiosyncratic when paradigmatic lexicon optimization strategies and the role of lexical meaning variation for case selection are taken into consideration. Paradigmatic constraints take various lexical entries as input, such as different meaning variants, for instance. They capture the competition between the tendency to express the thematic variants of a lexeme or thematic differences between lexemes by case, and lexicon economy, i.e. the tendency to use the same case pattern for the thematic variants of a lexeme. Such issues have been neglected in past research on case linking, but the preliminary evidence for such constraints that are presented in this paper and in Kutscher / Klein (this volume) show that this line of thought is promising for further research.

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