Latin paenitet me, miseret me, pudet me and active clause alignment in Proto-Indo-European

Some Latin verbs take the the experiencer argument in the accusative case. The case-frames of these verbs has been interpreted as evidence for active clause alignment in PIE. According to this hypothesis, the case syntax of Latin verbs like and is inherited from PIE and represents an archaic pattern...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Indogermanische Forschungen 2013-12, Vol.118 (2013), p.93-110
Main Author: Matasović, Ranko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
case asignment
clause alignment
comparative syntax
Latin
Proto-Indo-European
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Some Latin verbs take the the experiencer argument in the accusative case. The case-frames of these verbs has been interpreted as evidence for active clause alignment in PIE. According to this hypothesis, the case syntax of Latin verbs like and is inherited from PIE and represents an archaic pattern originally affecting all stative intransitives. However, Latin verbs with case-frames like belong to the second conjugation, which includes the PIE causatives (e. g. PIE * ‘admonishes’ > Lat. ) and statives (PIE * ‘is silent’ > Lat. ). This is the consequence of the regular sound changes (* > , * > ) by which the stative and causative suffixes merged as Latin . We argue that the irregular case-frames of the Latin bivalent statives are innovations based on the analogy with the case-frames of causative verbs, which had the Causee argument in the accusative case.
ISSN:0019-7262
1613-0405
DOI:10.1515/indo.2013.118.2013.93