The diachrony of non-canonical subjects in Northwest Semitic

Abstract

Abstract A syntactic pattern involving non-canonical subject marking in some Northwest-Semitic languages is fascinating for two reasons: (1) it cannot be reconstructed to the proto-language and it must have developed relatively late in the history of the family, which affords us an opportunity to observe its development through textual attestations (cf. Barðdal & Eythórsson 2009 ); (2) the predication is by and large non-verbal, which seems to counter explanations based on passive derivations and agentivity as a possible origin ( Haspelmath 2001 ). I suggest instead that non-canonical subjects originated from free datives in clauses where the typical agreement cannot be applied. In such cases, the dative, which is animate, definite and associated with the subject, eventually outranked the original subject, which is typically a nominalization and never animate or definite. I further discuss the special features of the non-canonical subject and argue that it is quite stable.

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