348 LAURA Α. MICHAELISlinking is in effect. The crucial distinction between deviant dative case on
the one hand, and deviant ablative and genitive case on the other is this:
while the dative can code any non-macrorole core argument — including a
theme outranked for U by a locative (26) — the ablative and genitive cases,
with the aforementioned exception, code only that non-macrorole core
argument representing a theme deprived of U status by this marked linking.
It is perhaps significant that the dative never serves to code such a theme
among three-place predicates licensing the marked linkage. The genitive
and ablative cases, however, code the outranked theme argument among
both transitive three-place predicates like onero (14b) and intransitive two-
place predicates like memini (8a).
The association of ablative and genitive objects with a marked linkage
provides one with a ready explanation for the pattern of case distribution
discovered by Pinkster (1985). In a study of 250 pages taken from several
Latin authors, Pinkster found that, among two-place predicates, 88.3% of
the objects bore accusative case, 7.6% bore dative, and only 3.6% and .5%
bore ablative and genitive case, respectively. The preponderance of accusa
tive objects is, of course, unremarkable, as the nominative-accusative pat
tern is the norm among two-place predicates. The distributional hierarchy
among exceptionally case-marked objects is also explicable within the pre
sent framework. Ablative and genitive object-coding, as the manifestation
of a marked linkage, is quite rare. Dative object-marking, as a product of
the same mechanism that produces normal case-patterns, is, by contrast,
relatively common.
We might now examine particular instances of the marked linkage
described in (26), which will be shown to be a feature not only of two-place
state predicates assigning one macrorole, but also of three-place
accomplishment predicates assigning the expected two. In the latter case an
accusative argument is present in addition to the nominative PrP and that
argument which bears deviant case; but in both instances the ablative or
genitive serves to code a non-macrorole theme deprived of undergoer status
by a marked linking of the thematic role locative to that macrorole.
Among two-place predicates, ablative or genitive theme-coding is a
double marker of sorts: it signals the presence of both the marked linkage
and intransitivity; among three-place predicates it signals only the former.
These two features are associated with particular subclasses of (two-place)
state predicates sanctioning ablative or genitive theme-coding. The marked
linkage alone is associated with accomplishment subclasses which are sys-