Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

ON DEVIANT CASE-MARKING IN LATIN^315

gerundive (the passive future participle) of a transitive verb is used as a pre­
dicative adjective in agreement with the subject to express obligation or
necessity. The person on whom the duty lies is coded by a dative argument:

(5) a. Amici tibi consolandi sunt.

friends(N) VOU(D) consoled(isí) are

"You ought to console your friends."

b. Omnia mihi er ant agenda.

all-things(N) me(ö) done(N) were

"I had to do everything."

c. Carthago delenda est Romanis.

Carthage(N) destroyed(N) is Romans(ö)

"The Romans must destroy Carthage."

1.2 Non-accusative "objects"

In addition to inverse verbs, there is a large class of two- and three-place

predicates licensing non-accusative "objects". (The term "object" should

be reserved for accusatively case-marked arguments, but will be extended

here to the non-accusative non-subject argument of any "deviant" two-

place predicate.) There are three groups of such verbs — requiring dative,

genitive and ablative objects, respectively. As mentioned earlier, verbs tak­

ing dative objects, most of which are two-place predicates, represent the

largest group in this class; this fact, it will be seen, is accounted for within

the RRG analysis. A sampling of verbs with dative objects is shown in (6):

(6) a. Fortibus auxilitur fortuna.

brave(ö) helps fortune(N)

"Fortune helps the brave."

b. Haec res omnibus hominibus nocet.

this(N) thing(N) all(ö) men(ö) harms

"This fact harms everyone."

c. Tibi fido/diffido.

you(ö) (I)trust/distrust.

"I trust/distrust you."

d. Legibus paruit consul.

laws(ö) obeyed consul(N)

"As consul, he obeyed the laws."