Non-nominative subjects (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Non-nominative subjects ed. by Peri Bhaskararao and Karumuri Venkata Subbarao Heiko Narrog Non-nominative subjects. Ed. by Peri Bhaskararao and Karumuri Venkata Subbarao. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Vol. 1. (Typological studies in language 60.) Pp. xii, 323. ISBN 9027229708. $150 (Hb). Vol. 2. (Typological studies in language 61.) Pp. xii, 317. ISBN 9027229716. $150 (Hb). Nonnominative subjects (NNS) are sentence constituents in languages with accusative alignment that exhibit some if not all canonical subject properties except nominal case marking. In English NNSs are rare, but exceptional case marking of subjects of embedded clauses, discussed by Howard Lasnik in vol. 1, is one possible example. The concept of NNS can be, and actually is, extended to noncanonical marking of subjects in languages with ergative alignment which receive other than their default ergative (or absolutive) marking, and to other noncanonical case-frames as well. Therefore, the term ‘noncanonically marked’ might have been a more appropriate title for the publication than ‘non-nominative’, as the Australian language specialist Tasaku Tsunoda remarks in his contribution. This two-volume set is the second high-profile publication on this topic within a relatively short time, following Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects (ed. by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R. M. W. Dixon, and Masayuki Onishi, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001). Vol. 1 contains authors from A to Min, vol. 2 from Mis to Y, combining for twenty-eight contributions and 640 pages of densely printed text. The research [End Page 453] impetus in this case came mostly from South Asian languages. This is not surprising since South Asia, besides the Caucasus, is arguably the language area that exhibits the most abundant noncanonical case marking. While only a single contribution by Bernard Comrie deals with a Caucasian language, fifteen papers are concerned with one or more South Asian languages. Four papers deal with Germanic languages, most prominently Icelandic, and the rest are dispersed among different language families and languages. With respect to theoretical background, a clear majority of the papers are oriented toward formal syntax, particularly those dealing with South Asian and Germanic languages. There are several typologically (functionally) oriented papers, and two are on the acquisition of NNSs. The questions that emerge from the study of NNSs are as apparent as the answers to them are controversial. First, are NNSs really subjects? There seem to be various degrees of subjecthood, depending on how many properties a particular NNS shares with canonically marked subjects in a specific language. It turns out that, crosslinguistically, agreement on the verb tends to be the one subject-like feature most difficult to obtain for NNSs, while properties like control and conjunction reduction come more easily. Some papers go even further by questioning the concept of subject as such. Second, are the sentences in which NNSs occur, in particular sentences with one more argument, transitive or intransitive? Masayoshi Shibatani (not in these volumes) has triggered a discussion by making a strong argument that they are intransitive. Then, what are the conditioning factors for having NNSs? Is the existence of NNSs predictable from other properties of the language? What conditions (or elements of the clause) are responsible for noncanonical subject marking? Are NNSs arguments or adjuncts? Further, what are the implications for the theory of case (Case)? It is quite impossible to provide details of individual papers and issues within the limited space here. Instead, I wish to make some general remarks that pertain to the publication as a whole. These volumes will doubtless become an invaluable source of information on NNSs. This is the most extensive publication on the topic to date, and it contains a good number of outstanding individual contributions that deserve to be read beyond specialized interest in the topic. But the value of the publication might have been further enhanced if the papers were more connected to each other. Particularly, formally oriented studies exhibit the tendency to make far-reaching proposals about language structure in general on the basis of just one or a very limited number of languages. In a publication thematically as tightly knit as this one, it is striking to see then how apparently conflicting claims are...