Case on the margins
Pragmatics and argument marking in Vaeakau-Taumako and beyond
- Author(s): Åshild Næss 1
-
View Affiliations Hide AffiliationsAffiliations:1 University of Zurich
- Source: Case, Animacy and Semantic Roles , pp 305-328
- Publication Date September 2011
This paper examines the argument-marking system in the Polynesian language Vaeakau-Taumako, which has pragmatically related functions similar to those found e.g. in so-called Differential Object Marking systems, but which does not refer to syntactic relations or semantic roles, the functions normally attributed to case-marking systems. It asks exactly which functions should be taken to define a case-marking system as opposed to a system marking pragmatic functions such as topic-focus-structure, and suggests a distinction between two grammatically relevant types of pragmatic salience: referent-determined salience, which is often relevant to case marking, and speaker-determined salience, which is typically encoded in purely pragmatic marking systems. On this account, referent-determined salience emerges as the property that links case-marking and pragmatic marking systems.
- Affiliations: 1: University of Zurich
-
From This Site
/content/books/9789027284815-tsl.99.11naedcterms_subject,pub_keyword-contentType:Journal105