4.3 Subject Issues
4.3.1 Some previous approaches
In this section, we will summarise some of the previous approaches to the subject issue.
4.3.1.1 Alarcos Llorach (1994)
Alarcos Llorach (1994) argues a-introduced phrases are pps and they cannot be subjects at all. Even if we agree they are not subjects, this is probably a simplistic view of the issue. The a-phrase is optional in many cases, and we have also argued in Chapter 3 that it is not a prepositional phrase but rather a noun phrase that is dative marked through a. In any case, he does not provide an analysis that explains what the function of the dative is or how to characterise these predicates.
4.3.1.2 Mendívil Giró (2002)
Mendívil Giró (2002) proposes a system similar to the one shown by languages with ergative and absolutive case system. He claims psychological predicates are to be described as displaying “lexically conditioned partial ergativity”. According to him, the dative experiencer would be analysed as an ergative subject whereas the postposed argument would be analysed as an absolutive direct object. This implies accepting that Spanish shows a partially absolutive-ergative agreement pattern. He also claims that the default lexical entry for these verbs would be the ergative one, and in cases where we have two different possible patterns - as seen with Types 1 and 2 in § 4.2.1 repeated below- we could get the accusative alternative by introducing a causative operator, for example.
4.3. Subject Issues 117
(25)
nom np v acc np
Type 1 Cause ... Experiencer
agr1 agr1 (26) a. Los
The.m.pl niños child.m.pl
están be.prs.3pl
molestando disturb.prespart
a
[+anim]
las the.f.pl niñas
child.f.pl
‘The boys are disturbing the girls’
b. Los The.m.pl
niños child.m.pl
las
3.f.acc.pl están be.prs.3pl
molestando disturb.prespart
‘The boys are disturbing them’
(27)
(dative np) dative clitic v nominative np
Type 2 Experiencer ... ... Cause
agr1 agr1 agr2 agr2
(28) (A dat
Marta) Marta
le 3sg.dat
molestan annoy.prs.3pl
los the.m.pl
ruidos noise.pl (lit.) To Marta her annoy the noises
‘Marta finds the noises annoying’
According to Mendívil Giró (2002) , type 2 verbs -as the one found in (28) would be the default pattern. Since they also have an alternative with an accusative -type 1 and examples in (26)-, it would be this alternative that should be specified by a particular operator.
He believes this ergative marking system is a grammaticalisation derived from dative dislocated constructions. However, if the dative np is not present, the dative pronoun appears in the same position as in any construction where we have a weak pronoun, such as ditransitives. It is not clear how we can argue that a dative pronoun is an ergative subject in the case of a psychological predicate, but an objective
function with any other predicates, when there is no apparent structural difference between them. Furthermore, we seem to have no markers for either the absolutive or ergative case. This is not be the biggest issue as accusative and dative markers are syncretic in many cases, so we could argue the ergative and dative cases are too. Nevertheless, his proposal also fails to explain how or why the absolutive object with no case marking agrees with the verb in exactly the same way a nominative subject does in the nominative-accusative system version of Spanish. In our opinion, Mendívil Giró (2002)’s proposal is saying this new system shows complete syncretism with dative and nominative elements but based on an unexpected order, a whole new case-marking system is proposed.
It is obvious that the issues that made Mendívil Giró (2002) propose an ergative system for Spanish are found in the language, and need addressing. However, if we wanted to keep the spirit of a dative subject we could discard Mendívil Giró (2002)’s approach in favour of something less drastic, such as treatment of the dative as displaying quirky case.
4.3.1.3 Quirky case accounts
For the Icelandic passive, Zaenen et al. (1985) argue that it is best to look at such issues with an approach based on grammatical functions. They argue passive constructions in Icelandic such as (29) below have a non-nominative subject:
(29) Honum him (dat)
var was
hjálpaą helped
‘He was helped’ (Zaenen et al., 1985, p. 96)
They apply tests such as the ones seen earlier in this chapter, and the results seem to indicate that Icelandic does show indeed a case of passive with a subject that takes dative case. Sigurąsson (2004) builds on that idea and contrasts Icelandic non-nominative subjects with elements in other languages that look similar but are instead subject-like non-nominatives. These are found in Latin, Russian or German and, as we are discussing, in Spanish.
However, Fernández Soriano (1999) or Masullo (1992) take this idea of
non-4.3. Subject Issues 119
nominative subjects and also argue for a quirky dative case in Spanish. Masullo (1992) admits some differences with Icelandic and proposes an approach based on Belleti and Rizzi (1988) and points out these predicates are very similar to unac-cusatives. He claims that these constituents raise to Spec (ip) and the nominative case is assigned to the postverbal np via government rather than by specifier-head agreement. Fernández Soriano (1999) claims that this quirky case is morphological and inherent and it allows the phrase bearing it to move to case-marked positions.
This is why it can move and merge as external argument where it can satisfy the epp condition13. She, however, provides examples from very particular types of verbs like meteorological or impersonal constructions and not specifically from psychological predicates.
(30) En in
Madrid Madrid
llueve
rain.prs.3sg
‘It rains in Madrid’
She claims impersonal sentences have a locative phrase as external argument which is marked with quirky case. She also compares cases where this can be extrapolated to datives as below:
(31) Aquí Here
falta
miss.prs.3sg café coffee
‘Coffee is missing here’
(32) Me 1sg.dat
falta
miss.prs.3sg café coffee
‘I am missing some coffee’
A more idiomatic reading of the sentences above would be the implication that we are in need of more coffee. Fernández Soriano (1999) claims therefore that the locative or dative are the subjects. In a similar fashion, Pesetsky (1995) introduces a zero (i.e.
null) causative morpheme, with a behaviour similar to that of a preposition. Landau (2010) claims that these verbs denote locative relations, the dative is actually an oblique with a null preposition and can be analysed through an extended version of
13epp: Extended Projection Principle as proposed by Chomsky (1982): clauses must contain a npor dp in subject position.
locative inversion. All the analyses mentioned above are quite similar in nature, but we will end up arguing against them abd we will prove that the dative in constructions with psychological predicates in Spanish cannot be the subject.
4.3.1.4 Applicative
Cuervo (2010) proposes a specific analysis for psychological verbs which involves a specialised applicative head: “The verbal root combines with a stative v and takes the dp as its specifier. The experiencer is added to the structure not as an argument of the verb, but as an extra, external argument, licensed by a specialised head, the applicative Appl. The applicative head licenses the experiencer as its specifier and relates it to the vP it takes as a complement.”(Cuervo, 2010, p. 29).
(33) ApplP
dpDat
A Vera Appl
le
vPBE
dp
los gatos vBE √ gustar
In the following section, we will test the possibility of the dative as a subject and will provide results that show this is not the case. We will analyse it as an objective function in later sections.