The status of the oblique possessor in BE-possessives: Evidence from Russian and Hungarian

Abstract

Summary This comparative syntactic study claims that the possessor of Russian and Hungarian BE-possessives neither originates nor lands in [Spec,VoiceP], the designated structural position of external arguments since Kratzer (1996). Possessive sentences universally describe a state with two eventuality participants, the possessor and the possessee (Stassen 2009). BE-possessives are built on dyadic-unaccusative existential BE. Neither of its two eventuality participants passes the agent/cause tests provided by Alexiadou, Anagnostopoulou & Schäfer (2015). It is claimed here that possessive BE-sentences in Russian and Hungarian pattern with the piacere-subclass of psych-predicates, inasmuch as the possessor bears the oblique case and the theme appears in the nominative in them. In the cartographic model, the oblique experiencer of the piacere-type of psych-predicates targets a position higher than canonical, agent/cause subjects do (see Cardinaletti 1997, 2004; Rizzi 1997, 2004 for Italian). This paves the way for oblique possessors and non-canonical subjects to appear in positions left-adjacent to the designated position for canonical, nominative subjects (see Cardinaletti 1997, 2004 for Italian; Benedicto 1995; Livitz 2006, 2012 for Russian; Dalmi 2000, 2005 for Hungarian). Possessive BE-predicates in Russian and Hungarian share a number of syntactic and semantic properties with existential BE (see Partee & Borschev 2008 for Russian and Szabolcsi 1992, 1994 for Hungarian). Nonetheless, BE-possessives and BE-existentials differ in the two languages in their clausal architecture, due to the fact that EPP is fulfilled in different ways in them.