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Who needs it? Variation in experiencer marking in Estonian ‘need’-constructions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2017

LIINA LINDSTRÖM  and
VIRVE-ANNELI VIHMAN
LIINA LINDSTRÖM*
Affiliation:
University of Tartu
VIRVE-ANNELI VIHMAN*
Affiliation:
University of Tartu
*
Author’s address: Institute for Estonian and General Linguistics, University of Tartu, Jakobi 2, 51014 Tartu, Estonialiina.lindstrom@ut.ee
Author’s address: virve.vihman@ut.ee
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Abstract

In this paper, we tackle the twin issues of obligatoriness of semantic arguments and variation in their expression through a study of Estonian constructions denoting need. The variation under investigation consists in the choice of case-marking, between adessive and allative case, as well as the option to omit the oblique argument. We extracted and coded ‘need’-constructions from spoken and written corpora and used non-parametric classification methods for analysis. We found high rates of oblique experiencer omission in these constructions (nearly 60% across corpora). The most important predictors of overt expression of the experiencer in our models were participant-internal modality and the presence of nominal complements, meaning that both semantic and syntactic factors are relevant. The choice between two overt cases is affected by person, complement type, and referential distance. Topical experiencer arguments do not show the subject-like tendency to be omitted more often, but they are more likely to be marked with adessive case, suggesting that adessive is more grammaticalised as a structural, non-nominative, argument-marking case than the more semantic allative case. Our findings show that oblique, semantic arguments may be frequently omitted, and both semantic and syntactic factors may affect variation in case-marking.

Keywords

argument omissionexperiencermodalityvariation in case-marking
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , 10 November 2017 , pp. 789 - 822
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

[1]

This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council, grant PUT90 (Estonian Dialect Syntax), and by the (European Union) European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies). The paper was completed while the second author held a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (grant no. 623742, 2014–2016). The authors also wish to thank Laura Janda for commenting on an earlier version of this paper and three anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees whose comments helped to greatly improve the paper. Any remaining faults are our own.

Abbreviations used in the paper are listed at the end; we follow the conventions of the Leipzig Glossing Rules, which can be found athttp://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php.

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