Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T19:10:12.282Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Grammar of Accusative Case in Kannada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Jeffrey Lidz
Jeffrey Lidz*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
*
University of Maryland, Department of Linguistics, 1401 Marie Mount Hall, College Park, MD 20742, [jlidz@umd.edu]
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the distribution of accusative case morphology in Kannada, detailing the syntactic, semantic, and morphological factors that contribute to its occurrence. Accusative case morphology is optional on inanimate direct objects. When optional, its presence indicates a specific reading, which I argue is best modeled as a choice function. The specific readings due to morphological form are distinct from specific readings that arise from syntactic position. Positional specificity is detectable only on morphologically noncasemarked object NPs. When the accusative case morpheme is obligatory, specificity effects are positional and not due to the presence of the morpheme. In this situation, additional morphology is required to achieve an inherently specific interpretation, suggesting a separation between morphological signals and meaning.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 82 , Issue 1 , March 2006, pp. 10 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aissen, Judith. 2004. Differential object marking: Economy vs. iconicity. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21. 435–83.Google Scholar
Amritavalli, R. 1998. Kannada clause structure. Paper presented at Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW), Hyderabad, India, January 1998.Google Scholar
Anderson, Stephen. 1992. A-morphous morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arad, Maya. 1999. On ‘little v‘. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 33. 1–25.Google Scholar
Aronoff, Mark. 1994. Morphology by itself. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Baker, Mark. 1985. Incorporation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Baltin, Mark. 1977. Quantifier-negative interactions. Studies in language variation, ed. by Shuy, Roger and Fasold, Ralph, 30–36. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Beard, Robert. 1995. Lexeme-morpheme base morphology. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Bleam, Tonia. 1999. Clitic doubling in leista Spanish. Newark: University of Delaware dissertation.Google Scholar
Bright, William. 1958. An outline of colloquial Kannada. Pune: Deccan College Postgraduate Research Institute.Google Scholar
Brugé, Laura. 2002. The position of demonstratives in the extended nominal projection. The functional structure of DP and IP: The cartography of syntactic structures, ed. by Cinque, Guglielmo, 15–53. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carden, Guy. 1973. Disambiguation, favored readings, and variable rules. New ways of analyzing variation in English, ed. by Bailey, C.-J. N. and Shuy, Roger, 171–82. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Chung, Sandra, and Ladusaw, William. 2004. Restriction and saturation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1979. Definite and animate direct objects: A natural class. Linguistica Silesiana 3. 13–21.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 1988. Agreement vs. case-marking and direct objects. Agreement in natural language: Approaches, theories, descriptions, ed. by Barlow, Michael and Ferguson, Charles A., 159–80. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Dayal, Veneeta. 2003. A semantics for pseudo-incorporation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, ms.Google Scholar
Dayal, Veneeta. 2004. Number marking and (in)definiteness in kind terms. Linguistics and Philosophy 27. 393–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Hoop, Helen. 1996. Case configuration and noun phrase interpretation. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly. 1992. Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Embick, David. 1997. Voice and the interfaces of syntax. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.Google Scholar
Enç, Mürvet. 1991. The semantics of specificity. Linguistic Inquiry 22. 1–26.Google Scholar
Engdahl, Elisabeth. 1986. Constituent questions: The syntax and semantics of questions with special reference to Swedish. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Farkas, Donka. 1995. Specificity and scope. Santa Cruz: University of California, Santa Cruz, ms.Google Scholar
Farkas, Donka, and Swart, Henrietta de. 2003. The semantics of incorporation. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Fodor, Janet A., and Sag, Ivan. 1982. Referential and quantificational indefinites. Linguistics and Philosophy 5. 355–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halle, Morris, and Marantz, Alec. 1993. Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. The view from Building 20, ed. by Hale, Kenneth and Keyser, Samual Jay, 53–110. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene. 1982. The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, Amherst dissertation.Google Scholar
Hintikka, Jaako. 1986. The semantics of a certain. Linguistic Inquiry 12. 331–36.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 1986. Word order and syntactic features in Scandinavian languages and English. Stockholm: Department of General Linguistics, University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul, and Thompson, Sandra. 1984. The discourse basis for lexical categories in universal grammar. Language 56. 251–99.Google Scholar
Keach, Camelia. 1995. SM and OM as agreement and PI in Swahili. Theoretical approaches to African linguistics, ed. by Akinlabi, Akinbiyi, 109–16. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 1998. Partitive case and aspect. The projection of arguments, ed. by Butt, Miriam and Geuder, Wilhelm, 265–308. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. Scope or pseudo-scope? Are there wide-scope indefinites? Events and grammar, ed. by Rothstein, Susan, 163–96. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Lidz, Jeffrey. 1996. Dimensions of reflexivity. Newark: University of Delaware dissertation.Google Scholar
Lidz, Jeffrey, and Musolino, Julien. 2002. Children's command of quantification. Cognition 84. 113–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lidz, Jeffrey, and Musolino, Julien. 2006. On the quantificational status of indefinites: The view from child language. Language Acquisition, to appear.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahajan, Anoop. 1990. The A/A-bar distinction and movement theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Matthewson, Lisa. 1999. On the interpretation of wide scope indefinites. Natural Language Semantics 7. 79–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohanan, Tara. 1995. Wordhood and lexicality. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 13. 75–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musolino, Julien, and Lidz, Jeffrey. 2003. The scope of isomorphism: Turning adults into children. Language Acquisition 11. 277–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musolino, Julien, and Lidz, Jeffrey. 2006. Why children are not universally successful with quantification. Linguistics, to appear.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musolino, Julien, Crain, Stephen; and Thornton, Rosalind. 2001. Navigating negative quantificational space. Linguistics 38. 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Postal, Paul. 1969. Anaphoric islands. Chicago Linguistic Society 5. 209–39.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1997. Quantifier scope: How labor is divided between QR and choice-functions. Linguistics and Philosophy 20. 335–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruys, Eddy G. 1992. The scope of indefinites. Utrecht: OTS, University of Utrecht dissertation.Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold. 1980. Noun incorporation in Greenlandic: A case of syntactic word formation. Language 57. 300–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sapir, Edward. 1911. The problem of noun incorporation in American languages. American Anthropologist 13. 250–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spenser, H. 1914. A Kanarese grammar with graduated exercises. Mysore: Wesleyan Mission Press.Google Scholar
Sportiche, Dominique. 1996. Clitic constructions. Phrase structure and the lexicon, ed. by Rooryck, Johan and Zaring, Laurie, 213–76. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Sridhar, S. N. 1979. Dative subjects and the notion of subjects. Lingua 49. 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sridhar, S. N. 1990. Kannada. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Steedman, Mark. 2004. Surface-compositional scope-alternation without existential quantifiers. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, ms. Online: ftp://ftp.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/pub/steedman/quantifiers/journal5.pdf.Google Scholar
Torrego, Esther. 1998. The dependencies of objects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Geenhoven, Veerle. 1995. Semantic incorporation: A uniform semantics for West Greenlandic noun incorporation and Germanic bare plural configurations. Chicago Linguistic Society 31. 171–86.Google Scholar
Verma, Manindra K., and Mohanan, K. P. (eds.) 1990. Experiencer subjects in South Asian languages. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Thomas Ede. 1993. On the proper treatment of opacity in certain verbs. Natural Language Semantics 1. 149–79.Google Scholar