Dative Subjects (was: Re: Genetic Descent)

Leo A. Connolly connolly at memphis.edu
Thu Jul 26 22:16:27 UTC 2001


Responding to my comment on the elimination of "dative subjects" in
English, Douglas G Kilday wrote:

> Instead of the Fillmorian analysis, I would draw a parallel with the use of
> <set> for <sit> by some speakers of current English. Again the factitive has
> displaced the simple verb in the present. This is particularly common in the
> impersonal intransitive, e.g. "That doesn't set well with me.". However,
> since <sit> is much more common than <thenken> was, and occurs widely in
> compounds, it seems unlikely that <set> will ever completely displace <sit>.

I can't think of any compounds of _sit_, though _set_ has them. No
matter, the example isn't quite parallel.  Although _Tencean_ was formed
in the matter of factitives, the same formative was also (if I remember
correctly) used for inchoatives, or for something else anyway.  We
cannot therefore conclude that _Tencean_ was ever in reality factitive.
So if we're talking replacement here, we must still ask why we have the
vocalism of one with the syntax of the other.

> I must also question the Fillmorian view of "hunger" and "thirst". Chaucer
> has both a personal <thursten> 'to have thirst' and an impersonal <thursten>
> 'to cause thirst', the latter presumably from a PGmc factitive in *-jan
> which has fallen together in form with the simple verb.

The OED shows no signs of either a factitive or an inchoative.  The
normal OE usage is with accusative of person and genitive of thing, or
merely dative of person.  The OED lists a few OE examples with a
personal subject, but they are in fact ambiguous.  The first unambiguous
personal subjects occur in the 14th century, indicating that a
replacement process (which you may call Fillmorean if you like, though
there is no need to) had begin.

> Likewise I posit
> *hungran 'to have hunger' beside the factitive *hungrjan > OE <hyngran> 'to
> cause hunger'.

No problem with a verb form containing -j-, but what indicates that it
was ever factitive -- and if so, why the person who is made to hunger
would have been the subject?  That's exactly what we should not expect:
"The smell of sauerkraut made me hungry", not vice versa!

> Instead of the brutally abrupt syntactic shift required by
> the Fillmorian scenario,

Brutal?  The *only* shift is that a dative has been replaced by a
nominative, bringing a verb into line with the majority that always had
nominative subjects.  How is this brutal?  And while Fillmore's system
works particularly well in explaining it, it is by no means necessary.
We need only note DAT > NOM.  That's it!

> As for "like", Whitehall gives the sense development as 'to be of like form'
>  > 'be like' > 'be suited to' > 'be pleasing to'. "Me liketh" is an example
> of the fourth sense, which is now archaic in most dialects (but recall the
> 7-Up slogan "You like it; it likes you"). "I like" is a specialization of
> the third sense "I am suited to".

Nego.  Semantically, that could be true, if OE _li:cian_ had a personal
"liker" as subject.  But it doesn't; we don't find that until the 14th
century, according to the OED.

> It cannot plausibly be regarded as derived
> from the fourth sense by Fillmorian shift.

Really, why not?  It's in line with the other examples and doesn't
require Fillmore in particular.

> The replacement of "meseems" by "it seems to me" and the perfectly
> acceptable variant "to me it seems" clarifies the matter. It has nothing to
> do with "case-grammar analysis" or any alleged thirsting by speakers to
> stick the "experiencer" in front of the sentence, since that didn't happen
> here (in fact, the "experiencer" was booted out of initial position).
> Instead, the radical restructuring of ME resulted in the obsolescence of
> certain sentence-frames.

Well, yes: it was booted out of initial position as part of a
restructuring.  But isn't that what I'd been saying?  Fillmore helps us
understand why, but if don't like Case Grammar, try considering the
facts without any particular system in mind.  You will find that many
Germanic verbs which once had a sentient person expressed as dative or
accusative, but which nonetheless tended to put that person in preverbal
position, now use the nominative instead.  Such datives are found in so
many languages that an appeal to dubious Germanic causatives will never
explain the phenomenon.  Please explain to my why German _gefallen_ and
Latin _place:re_ -- both statives with no hint of causative formation --
do the same thing.  The answer cannot be found within Germanic, but must
say something about universal grammar.  You must reach the same
conclusion, Case Grammar or no.

Leo Connolly



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