A Lexicalist Account of Icelandic Case Marking

A Lexicalist Account of Icelandic Case Marking Gosse Bouma Computational Linguistics Department University of Groningen, P.O. box 716 NL-9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands email: gosse~llet, rug. nl Abstract Recent theoretical descriptions of the Icelandic case system distinguish between lexicai and struc- tural case. Lexical case is assigned in ttle lexi- COIl, whereas structural case is assigned in syn- tax, under tim provision that it does not override lexicai case assignment. This analysis is prob- lematic for grammatical theories such as Cate- gorial Unification Grammar (CUG) and Head- driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) as the introducion of a syntactic case cmnponent is incompatible with the lexicalist ideology un- derlying these frameworks. Furthermore, the default character of syntactic case introduces a procedural aspect into the grammar which goes against the derlarative spirit of unification- based frameworks in general. In this paper, I propose an alternative anMysis, formulated in terms of CUC,, in which all case constraints are expressed lexically and in which default reason- ing is restricted to nonmonotonic inheritance of lexicai information only. 1 Introduction: Case Marking and Defaults The Icelandic case marking system I has often been taken as evidence for a distinction between structural (or regular or default) and lexicai (irregular, quirky) case marking. This distinc- tion is introduced to explain the following two facts. First, most verbs select nominative case marked subjects (1), but a number of verbs se- lect accusative, genitive or dative subjects (2)- (4). Similarly, most transitive or ditransitive verbs select an accusative direct object (1), but some select a nominative, dative, or genitive (4)- (6) object. (1) Stfilkan(N) kyssti drengina(A) the-girls kissed the-boys 1See Andrews (1982) for an extensive overview. (2) Drengina(A) vantar mat(A) the-boys lacks food (3) Verkjanna(G) g~etir ekki the-pain is-noticeable not (4) Barninu(D) batnac~i veikin(N) the-child ~,eeovered-from the-disease (5) I 13g hj£1paSi honum(D) helped him (6) I Eg mun sakna hans(G) will miss him The fact that the vast majority of subjects and objects is nominative and accusative, respec- tively, is accounted for by assigning default sta- tus to these cases (that is, if nothing is said about the case of a subject or object, assume it must be nominative or accusative, respectively). Second, passive sentences (7)-(8) and so-called 'raising' constructions (9)-(12) exhibit a distinc- tion between regular and irregular case marked NPs. In transformational terms, the case of reg- ular case marked NPs corresponds with their surface position ((7), (9), and (11)), whereas the case of irregular case marked NPs corre- sponds to their underlying position ((8), (10), and (12)). (In these examples, tc represents a lexicaily case marked NP-trace and t a trace which has not been assigned case (assunfing that structural case is only assigned to surface NP positions)). (7) Drengirnir(N) voru kysstir t the-boys were kissed (8) IIonum(D) var hj£1pa5 tD him was helped (9) lIann(N) virSist It elska hana] he seems to-love her (10) liana(A) virSist IrA vanta peninga] her seems to-lack money AcrEs DE COLING-92, NANTES, 23-28 AOt~'r 1992 9 4 PROC. OF COLING-92, NANTES, …

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