Abstract
This article investigates the evolution of the Romanian pattern [dative clitic + ‘be’ + N] (cf. Mi-e foame, lit. me.dat=is hunger, ‘I’m hungry’) from the 16th century until present-day Romanian. This pattern traces back to the Latin mihi est construction (lit. me.dat is), but is semantically more restricted than its Latin ancestor in that it can only express a physiological or psychological state. The aim of our study is to examine to what extent the dative experiencer behaves like a subject and the noun denoting a state like a predicate. We argue that, although certain subject diagnostics raise problems in Romanian, due to the obligatoriness of clitics and the scarcity of controlled infinitives, this pattern is clearly an instance of non-canonical subject marking with quirky dative case. The tendency toward expansion of this construction in present-day Romanian contradicts the hypothesis proposed in language typology according to which non-canonical subject marking tends to recede in favor of canonical marking in European languages.
References
Alboiu, Gabriela. 2007. Moving forward with Romanian backward control and raising. In William D. Davies & Dubinsky Stanley (eds.), New horizons in the analysis of control and raising, 187–211. Berlin: Springer.10.1007/978-1-4020-6176-9_8Search in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna. 1993. Accusative and dative case of objects of some transitive verbs in Icelandic and the semantic distinction between them. In Flyktförsök: Kalasbok till Christer Platzack på femtioårsdagen 18 november 1993 från doktorander och dylika [Escape attempt: A tribute to Christer Platzack on his fiftieth anniversary 18 November 1993 by his doctoral students], 1–13. Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages, Lund University.Search in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna. 2002. “Oblique subjects” in Icelandic and German. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 70. 61–99.Search in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna. 2006. Construction-specific properties of syntactic subjects in Icelandic and German. Cognitive Linguistics 17(1). 39–106.10.1515/COG.2006.002Search in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna & Thórhallur Eythórsson. 2003. Icelandic versus German: Oblique subjects, agreement and expletives. Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 39. 755–773.Search in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna & Thórhallur Eythórsson. 2005. Case and control constructions in German, Faroese and Icelandic: Or how to evaluate marginally-acceptable data? Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 75. 1–36.Search in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna & Thórhallur Eythórsson. 2018. What is a subject: The nature and validity of subject tests. In Jóhanna Barðdal, Na’ama Pat-El & Stephen Mark Carey (eds.), Non-canonically case-marked subjects: The Reykjavík-Eyjafjallajökull papers, 257–274. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.200.11barSearch in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna, Thórhallur Eythórsson & Tonya Kim Dewey. 2019. The alternating predicate puzzle: Dat-Nom versus Nom-Dat in Icelandic and German. Constructions and Frames 11(1). 107–170.10.1075/cf.00025.barSearch in Google Scholar
Bauer, Brigitte L. M. 1996. Residues of non-nominative syntax in Latin: The mihi est construction. Historische Sprachforschung/Historical Linguistics 109(2). 241–256.Search in Google Scholar
Benveniste, Émile. 1966. Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard.Search in Google Scholar
Bosse, Solveig, Benjamin Bruening & Masahiro Yamada. 2012. Affected experiencers. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 30. 1185–1230. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-012-9177-1.Search in Google Scholar
Bossong, Georg. 1998. Le marquage de l’expérient dans les langues d’Europe. In Jack Feuillet (ed.), Actance et valence dans les langues de l’Europe, 259–294. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110804485.259Search in Google Scholar
Brâncuş, Grigore. 2007. Studii de istorie a limbii române [Studies on the history of Romanian]. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Române.Search in Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1984. Subject and object control: Syntax, semantics, pragmatics. Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 10. 450–464. https://doi.org/10.3765/bls.v10i0.1957.Search in Google Scholar
Cornilescu, Alexandra. 2001. Romanian nominalizations: Case and aspectual structure. Journal of Linguistics 37(3). 467–501. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022226701001074.Search in Google Scholar
Cornilescu, Alexandra. 2009. Restructuring strategies of the Romanian verb fi ‘be’ and the analysis of existential sentences. In Georg A. Kaiser & Eva-Maria Remberger (eds.), Proceedings of the workshop “Null subjects, expletives and locatives in Romance” (Konstanzer Arbeitspapiere des Fachbereichs Sprachwissenschaft 123), 199–230. Konstanz: Universität Konstanz.Search in Google Scholar
Cotfas, Maura Aurelia. 2012. On the syntax of the Romanian subjunctive. Bucharest: University of Bucharest dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Cotfas, Maura Aurelia. 2016. Subjunctive complements in Romanian: The view from control. Generative Grammar in Geneva 9. 77–98.Search in Google Scholar
Cuervo, María Cristina. 2010. Some dative subjects are born, some are made. In Claudia Borgonovo, Manuel Español-Echevarría & Philippe Prévost (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 12th Hispanic linguistics symposium, 26–37. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Search in Google Scholar
Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen. 2011. The syntax of Romanian: Comparative studies in Romance. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen. 2013. Bare nouns. In Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin & Ion Giurgea (eds.), A reference grammar of Romanian: The noun phrase, vol. 1, 49–96. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.207.02dobSearch in Google Scholar
Dragomirescu, Adina. 2013a. Du latin au roumain. Une nouvelle hypothèse sur l’origine du supin en roumain. Revue de Linguistique Romane 77(305−306). 51–85.Search in Google Scholar
Dragomirescu, Adina. 2013b. Particularităţi sintactice ale limbii române in context romanic. Supinul [Syntactic peculiarities of Romanian in the context of Romance languages: The supine]. Bucharest: Editura Muzeului Naţional al Literaturii Române.Search in Google Scholar
Enrique-Arias, Andrés. 2000. Spanish object agreement markers and the typology of object agreement morphology. In Steven N. Dworkin & Dieter Wanner (eds.), New approaches to old problems, 149–164. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.210.14enrSearch in Google Scholar
Farkas, Donka F. 1988. On obligatory control. Linguistics and Philosophy 11(1). 27–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00635756.Search in Google Scholar
Fernández-Soriano, Olga. 1999. Two types of impersonal sentences in Spanish: Locative and dative subjects. Syntax 2(2). 101–140. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9612.00017.Search in Google Scholar
Fleisher, Nicholas. 2006. Russian dative subjects, case, and control. Manuscript. Berkeley: University of California. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.476.319&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed 9 April 2021).Search in Google Scholar
Franks, Steven. 2009. Macedonian pronominal clitics as object agreement markers. In Steven Franks, Vrinda Chidambaram & Brian Joseph (eds.), A linguist’s linguist: Studies in South Slavic linguistics in honor of E. Wayles Browne, 189–221. Bloomington, IN.: Slavica Publishers. Search in Google Scholar
Geber, Dana. 2006. Processing subject pronouns in relation to non-canonical (quirky) constructions. Cahiers Linguistiques d’Ottawa/Ottawa Papers in Linguistics 34. 47–61.Search in Google Scholar
Geber, Dana. 2011. Romanian dative clitic dependencies in raising constructions. Ottawa: Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Gheție, Ion. 1997. Istoria limbii române literare. Epoca veche (1532–1780) [The history of literary Romanian. Old period (1532–1780)]. Bucharest: Editura Academiei.Search in Google Scholar
Giurgea, Ion. 2017. Preverbal subjects and topic marking in Romanian. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 63(3). 279–322.Search in Google Scholar
Greenberg, Gerald R. & Steven Franks. 1991. A parametric approach to dative subjects and the second dative in Slavic. Slavic and East European Journal 35(1). 71–97. https://doi.org/10.2307/309034.Search in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1998. How young is standard average European? Language Sciences 20(3). 271–287. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0388-0001(98)00004-7.Search in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2001. Non-canonical marking of core arguments in European languages. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Robert M. W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds.), Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects, 53–84. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.46.04hasSearch in Google Scholar
Hill, Virginia. 2002. Adhering focus. Linguistic Inquiry 33(1). 164–172. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2002.33.1.164.Search in Google Scholar
Hill, Virginia. 2013. The emergence of the Romanian subjunctive. The Linguistic Review 30(4). 547–583. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33335-4_80848.Search in Google Scholar
Hill, Virginia & Gabriela Alboiu. 2016. Verb movement and clause structure in Old Romanian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198736509.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Hill, Virginia & Alexandru Mardale. 2017. On the interaction between differential object marking and clitic doubling in Romanian. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 62(4). 393–409.Search in Google Scholar
Hill, Virginia & Olga Mišeska-Tomić. 2009. A typology of subjunctive complements in Balkan languages. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics 9(1). 197–208.Search in Google Scholar
Ilioaia, Mihaela. 2020. Productivity of the Romanian mihi est pattern. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 65(1). 49–67. https://doi.org/10.33224/rrch.2020.65.3.Search in Google Scholar
Ilioaia, Mihaela. 2021. Non-canonical subject marking in Romanian: Status and evolution of the mihi est construction. Ghent: University of Ghent dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L. 1976. Towards a universal definition of subject. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject and topic, 303–333. New York: Academic Press.10.4324/9781315880259-15Search in Google Scholar
Kempchinsky, Paula Marie. 1986. Romance subjunctive clauses and logical form. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Khan, Geoffrey A. 1984. Object markers and agreement pronouns in Semitic languages. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47(3). 468–500. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x00113709.Search in Google Scholar
Ledgeway, Adam. 2015. Romance auxiliary selection in light of Romanian evidence. In Gabriela Pană Dindelegan, Rodica Zafiu, Adina Dragomirescu, Irina Nicula, Alexandru Nicolae & Louise Esher (eds.), Diachronic variation in Romanian, 3–34. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Legendre, Géraldine. 1989. Inversion with certain French experiencer verbs. Language 65(4). 752–782. https://doi.org/10.2307/414933.Search in Google Scholar
Madariaga, Nerea. 2011. Infinitive clauses and dative subjects in Russian. Russian Linguistics 35(3). 301–329. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11185-011-9082-y.Search in Google Scholar
Manoliu-Manea, Maria. 1990. Case markers and pragmatic strategies: Romanian clitics. In Wolfgang U. Dressler, Hans C. Luschützky, Oskar Pfeiffer & John R. Rennison (eds.), Contemporary morphology, 183–196. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110874082.183Search in Google Scholar
Melis, Chantal & Marcela Flores. 2013. On the historical expansion of non-canonically marked ‘subjects’ in Spanish. In Ilja A. Seržant & Leonid Kulikov (eds.), The diachronic typology of non-canonical subjects, 163–184. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.140.08melSearch in Google Scholar
Monachesi, Paola. 2000. Clitic placement in the Romanian verbal complex. In Brigit Gerlach & Janet Grijzenhout (eds.), Clitics in phonology, morphology, and syntax, 255–294. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.36.11monSearch in Google Scholar
Moore, John & David M. Perlmutter. 2000. What does it take to be a dative subject. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 18(2). 373–416. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1006451714195.10.1023/A:1006451714195Search in Google Scholar
Motapanyane, Virginia. 1995. Theoretical implications of complementation in Romanian. Padova: Unipress.Search in Google Scholar
Niculescu, Dana. 2013. The possessive dative structure: The possessive object. In Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (ed.), The grammar of Romanian, 183–190. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero. 2007. The object agreement constraint. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 25(2). 315–347. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-006-9010-9.Search in Google Scholar
Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela. 2013a. Romanian – a brief presentation. In Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (ed.), The grammar of Romanian, 1–7. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela. 2013b. The subject. In Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (ed.), The grammar of Romanian, 100–125. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rivero, María Luisa. 2009. A look at high applicatives in Romanian: Dative experiencers. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics 1. 21–35.Search in Google Scholar
Rivero, María Luisa & Dana Geber. 2003. Quirky subjects and person restrictions in Romance: Rumanian and Spanish. Cahiers Linguistiques d’Ottawa 31. 53–66.Search in Google Scholar
Rivero, María Luisa & Dana Geber. 2004. Raising in Romanian: Move and agree. Manuscript. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa. http://aix1.uottawa.ca/∼romlab/pubs/RiveroGerber.2004b.pdf (accessed 9 April 2021).Search in Google Scholar
Rivero, María Luisa & Ulyana Savchenko. 2005. Russian anticausatives with oblique subjects. Proceedings of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL) 13. 267–288.Search in Google Scholar
Seržant, Ilja A. 2013. Rise of canonical subjecthood. In Ilja A. Seržant & Leonid Kulikov (eds.), The diachronic typology of non-canonical subjects, 283–310. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.140.13serSearch in Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 1992. The case of quirky subjects. Lund: Lund University dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 2004. Icelandic non-nominative subjects. In Peri Bhaskararao & Karumuri V. Subbarao (eds.), Non-nominative subjects, 137–160. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.61.09sigSearch in Google Scholar
Terzi, Arhonto. 1993. PRO in finite clauses: A study of the inflectional heads of the Balkan languages. New York: University of New York dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Timotin, Emanuela. 2016. Presenting the corpus: Typologizing, dating, and locating the texts. In Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (ed.), The syntax of Old Romanian, 1–7. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198712350.003.0001Search in Google Scholar
Vasilescu, Andra. 2013. Sentence types. In Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (ed.), The grammar of Romanian, 537–548. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Zaenen, Annie, Joan Maling & Höskuldur Thráinsson. 1985. Case and grammatical functions: The Icelandic passive. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 3(4). 441–483. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00133285.Search in Google Scholar
Supplementary Material
The online version of this article offers Appendices 1 and 2 as supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/flin-2021-2031).
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
