LINGUIST List 23.2016
Tue Apr 24 2012
Diss: Ukrainian/French/Linguistic Theoreis/Morphology/Syntax: Bilous: Transitivité et marquage d’objet différentiel
Editor for this issue: Xiyan Wang
<xiyanlinguistlist.org>
Date: 23-Apr-2012
From: Rostyslav Bilous <ross.bilous
utoronto.ca>
Subject: Transitivité et marquage d’objet différentiel
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Institution: University of Toronto
Program: Department of French Studies
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2011
Author: Rostyslav Bilous
Dissertation Title: Transitivité et marquage d’objet différentiel
Dissertation URL:
http://hdl.handle.net/1807/31692
Linguistic Field(s):
Linguistic Theories
Dissertation Director:
Yves Roberge
Dissertation Abstract:
This thesis deals with direct object nouns case-marked differentially.According to the commonly assumed generalization nouns marked with ACC caseare prototypical objects representing high transitivity, whereas nounsmarked with non-accusative cases are not. However, such a view ignores thepossibility of a much finer distinction and fails to account for empiricaldata from languages with rich case morphology, such as Ukrainian. Given thecomplexity of the phenomenon under study the main objective of ourinvestigation is to account exhaustively for all possible instances ofnon-accusative case marking and case alternations on direct objects inUkrainian trying to classify and analyze the data by specifying the factorsthat condition the distinction 'accusative versus non-accusative casemarking' and by integrating the phenomenon of differential object marking(DOM) into a formal model. We present DOM as a phenomenon that, togetherwith the phenomenon of unaccusativity, can be subsumed under a broaderconcept of non-accusativity (defined as inability of verbs to assign ACCcase). In this context we show that in Ukrainian and French morphosyntacticcase realization has semantic underpinnings and that issues related to casevaluation emanate from the intersection of different phenomena - DOM andnominal incorporation, DOM and verb typology, DOM and the process of(de)transitivization, and so on. However, the (morphosyntactic) visibilityof those points of intersection varies from one language to another.
Generativist distinction between syntactic (abstract) and morphologicalcases as well as the functionalist idea that case markings can becharacterized as morphemes having different functional applicationsconstitute the basis of our analysis of data. Using the typological viewsof these two approaches on the category of case as guidelines in ourclassification of collected data, we resort to minimalist formalism. Caseis treated as an uninterpretable feature and a clear distinction is drawnbetween two types of case valuation - case checking and case assignment.Structural cases are checked during verb-raising and inherent (lexical)cases (among which we find predicate and default cases) are assigned eitherby a weak (or defective) v or by (an overt or null) preposition (P) in situ.
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