{"title":"Se middles in the evolution of predication: Is Serbian a split-accusative language?","authors":"Ljiljana Progovac","doi":"10.1353/jsl.2022.a923072","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<small>abstract</small>\n<p>This paper builds on the proposal that human languages reconstruct back to an intransitive (one argument) absolutive-like grammar. Such grammars are arguably still found in a variety of constructions across languages, including in verb-noun compounds in e.g. English and Serbian, and in Serbian <em>se</em> \"middles.\" Given the highly productive nature of <em>se</em> middles in Serbian, and given their specialization for low elaboration of events, and for the inanimate end of the Animacy Hierarchy, the proposal is that Serbian is best analyzed as a split-accusative language, on analogy with split-ergative languages, in that its dominant/default grammar is accusative, but the absolutive grammar (ergativity) occupies a significant niche.</p>","PeriodicalId":52037,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Slavic Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Slavic Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jsl.2022.a923072","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
abstract
This paper builds on the proposal that human languages reconstruct back to an intransitive (one argument) absolutive-like grammar. Such grammars are arguably still found in a variety of constructions across languages, including in verb-noun compounds in e.g. English and Serbian, and in Serbian se "middles." Given the highly productive nature of se middles in Serbian, and given their specialization for low elaboration of events, and for the inanimate end of the Animacy Hierarchy, the proposal is that Serbian is best analyzed as a split-accusative language, on analogy with split-ergative languages, in that its dominant/default grammar is accusative, but the absolutive grammar (ergativity) occupies a significant niche.
期刊介绍：
Journal of Slavic Linguistics, or JSL, is the official journal of the Slavic Linguistics Society. JSL publishes research articles and book reviews that address the description and analysis of Slavic languages and that are of general interest to linguists. Published papers deal with any aspect of synchronic or diachronic Slavic linguistics – phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, or pragmatics – which raises substantive problems of broad theoretical concern or proposes significant descriptive generalizations. Comparative studies and formal analyses are also published. Different theoretical orientations are represented in the journal. One volume (two issues) is published per year, ca. 360 pp.
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