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

Abstract

Abstract The 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 nominativus pendens, genetivus partitivus, nominativus absolutus, dativus sympatheticus, furthermore subjectless sentences and emphatic exclamations, and to put them under a common denominator, which might be called – in terms of an oxymoron – “irregular regularity.” Our analysis focuses on Latin and Ancient Greek material. Nevertheless, data from exotic languages, such as Kannada, are also considered, and they – once more – demonstrate the diversity of typologically different patterns as well as the predominant “eurocentric” attitude in the categorization of linguistic phenomena. Additionally, we discuss some features indirectly related to our main topic, such as converse verbs, the substitution of passive forms by active lexical items belonging to the same semantic field (as a type of morphological suppletion), and the change of valency or respectively semantic roles within the framework of Case grammar. However, this article only tries to fulfill the criteria of observational and descriptive adequacy within a model of ascending degrees, whereas the level of explanation will be addressed in future work.