LINGUIST List 3.6

Sun 05 Jan 1992

Disc: Nominative With Infinitive

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1. "FRANK R. BRANDON", Re: 2.581 Queries: Washed, Reduplication, Case
2. Ivan A Derzhanski, 2.883 Nominative with Infinitive

Message 1: Re: 2.581 Queries: Washed, Reduplication, Case

RE: Case assignment in Kannada
 The Portuguese infinitive takes nominative case subjects, but
it can also take agreement! Take a look at 'A Grammar of Portuguese
Infinitives' by Mario Perini, UT-Austin PhD diss. 1974. These infinitives
have suffered much scrutiny and you should be able to find more recent work.
Antonio Carlos Quicoli, if you can contact him, could probably find a GB
justification.

David Pesetsky (pesetskAthena.MIT.EDU) writes:
>
> HASPELMATHphilologie.fu-berlin.dbp.de writes:
>
> "A language I am working on, Lezgian (Nakho-Daghestanian), also shows
> Nominative case in non-finite clauses, e.g.
>
> (2) Didedi-z gada-0 agaq'-na k'an-zawa. 'Mother wants the boy to
 arrive.'
> mother-DAT boy-NOM arr.-NONFIN want-PRES"

Let me add the Bulgarian counterpart:

Tja iska toj da pristigne. `She wants him to arrive.'
she-NOM want-Pres3Sg he-NOM to arrive-Pres3Sg

where _da_ is a de-finitising particle. (There is no infinitive.)
I'm using pronouns, because nouns in Bulgarian don't decline.

> However, what
> makes it clear that the nominative here is in the lower clause, as
> opposed to the higher?

It is my impression that in most Daghestanian languages the main verb
in DAT/NOM constructions agrees in class and number with the NOM
argument. If the nominative is in the higher clause, the form of the
matrix verb should reflect that.

> DAT/NOM configurations with 'want' are common (e.g. Russian),

But not in control constructions.

Ivan A Derzhanski