23.1264, Qs: Case Marking in Verbless Exclamations

Tue Mar 13 15:53:11 UTC 2012

LINGUIST List: Vol-23-1264. Tue Mar 13 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.1264, Qs: Case Marking in Verbless Exclamations

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Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:52:55
From: Ante Aikio [ante.aikio at oulu.fi]
Subject: Case Marking in Verbless Exclamations

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We are planning a paper on the syntax of verbless exclamations, in 
particular on case marking patterns in such exclamations. Our starting 
point is the observation that in certain Finno-Ugric languages (such as 
Saami and Finnish) the presence of an interjection may trigger case 
marking in a verbless exclamation, for example:

(North Saami:)

Máhtte riehpu!
Matthew  poor-SG.NOM
'Poor Matthew!'

Vuoi Máhtte riebu!
Oh  Matthew  poor-SG.ACC
'Oh, poor Matthew!'

(Finnish:)

Matti parka!
Matthew  poor-SG.NOM
'Poor Matthew!'

Voi Matti parkaa!
Oh  Matthew  poor-SG.PART
'Oh, poor Matthew!'

The literature addressing verbless exclamations from a 
morphosyntactic point of view (rather than a semantic or pragmatic 
point of view) seems to be scarce. We have two questions for which we 
would be very glad to receive data and/or references:

1) Are there any general studies on the (morpho)syntax or typology of 
verbless exclamations? We are aware of references dealing with 
exclamations from the point of view of speech act theory, but we have 
not found any studies that focus on the grammatical features of such 
expressions.

2) Are you aware of any languages (other than Saami and Finnic 
languages) that show case marking patterns in exclamations lacking a 
verb? Are these patterns systematic and productive (i.e., not found in 
fossilized phrases only), and not easily explicable as results of verb 
ellipsis?

We will post a summary to the list, and we are also glad to provide 
more information on the phenomenon in Finnish and Saami to those 
interested.

best regards,

Ante Aikio
Giellagas institute of Saami Studies / University of Oulu, Finland
Department of Modern Languages / University of Helsinki, Finland

Katja Västi
Department of Finnish Language / University of Oulu, Finland
Department of Modern Languages / University of Helsinki, Finland 

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology
                     Syntax

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