“Depraved subjects and the maliciousness of objects,” i.e. quirky objects

Abstract

AbstractThe authors deal with a range of phenomena characterized by anomalies with respect to the mismatch between the surface realization of nominal phrases on the morphosyntactic level, i.e. the selection of cases, and their grammatical function. In connection with the subject function, traditional scholars generally regarded this kind of non-canonical relation between sentence structure and semantic interpretation as a categorial deviation and treated it under the cover terms grammatical versus logical subject. The eye-catching title of this paper makes allusions to rather dangerous, odd and sinister characters and topics in real life. On the one hand, therefore it should express the “irrational” use of well-established terms and categories. On the other hand, it may point at our attempt to group together and “telescope” different and mostly separate constructions such as