ON DEVIANT CASE-MARKING IN LATIN 3694. Conclusion
This paper has attempted to demonstrate that the Role and Reference
Grammar account of Latin case-marking enables one to discern a consider
able amount of regularity in the seemingly chaotic assignment of deviant
case-patterns. The exceptional character of these verbs was shown not to
reside in their case marking per se, but in one or both of the following com
ponents: transitivity (the assignment of fewer than two macroroles where
the requisite two verbal arguments are present) and the linkage between
the thematic role and macrorole tiers (the sanctioning of the marked lin
kage of locative to undergoer).
The following principles were shown to account for the vast majority of
irregular case-patterns exemplified in these data: for those verbs licensing a
PrP, any direct core argument lacking macrorole status will be given dative
coding, as specified in the linking algorithm governing default case-assign
ment (24); if a marked linking of locative to the macrorole of undergoer is
in effect, however, a direct core argument representing an (outranked)
theme lacking macrorole status will receive genitive or ablative coding (26);
where predicates do not license a PrP, as among the "flip" class of verbs
exemplified in (19) and (23), the non-macrorole core argument will receive
genitive coding. It was shown that there existed an exception to (26): abla
tive case was also shown to characterize the non-macrorole direct core
arguments of certain activity verbs lacking accomplishment readings. That
the ablative should serve this function among the small subclass of activity
predicates denoting use was held not to be detrimental to the claim that the
chief function of this case is that described in (26).
Thus, within this analysis, Latin's "deviant" case-patterns can be
accounted for with little more than the language's default case-assignment
rules and the coding principle specifying the manner in which a particular
marked linkage is manifested. Further, as was seen, the lexical decomposi
tion system entailed by this analysis provides a straightforward account of
the fact that the irregular case-patterns associated with stative verbs of
recollection, abundance, and lacking are identical to those of their causa
tive counterparts. And, as was demonstrated, the answers to other vexing
questions follow from this analysis of irregular case. Not only can one moti
vate the assignment of a particular irregular case-pattern to a particular
type of predicate, but one can also explain both the paucity of ablative and
genitive "objects" and the relative glut of dative "objects": while the