Seminar on CASE
                                       Spring 2003

Scott DeLancey


Topics

1    Problems and methods in case theory
2-3  Previous work: Fillmore, Chafe, Gruber, Anderson

4    The right way to do case grammar
          Constraining case theory
          Inducing a theory from typological patterns: verb
               valence, grammatical relations, surface case
               distinctions
          The Principle of Fidelity
               or, Why it's not OK to pretend that the grammatical
                    facts don't matter

5    The Agent Role (1)
          Why we can't deduce grammatical theory from our semantic
               representations

6    The Semantics of Theme and Loc
          Location and Motion
          Possession and Location
          States as Locations:  "Patient" as Theme

7    The Grammar of Theme and Loc
          The grammar of hitting and breaking
          'hitting' and 'breaking' in Tibetan
          motion and surface-contact in Klamath

8    Lexical categories of verbs
          Activity verbs: The grammar of eating and sleeping
          construal and lexicalization

9    The Agent Role (2):  The grammar of animacy, volition, &
          control
     
10   Case in Syntax
          What about the other cases?  Dative & Benefactive,
               Instrumental, Ablative, all that jazz
          Why are there adpositions?
          Relational Grammar and the Universal Alignment Hypothesis


Readings

Readings will include some or all of the following, as well as some
unpublished stuff of my own:

Chafe, Wallace. 1970. Meaning and the Structure of Language,
     chapters 9-12 (pp. 95-166).   Chicago: University of Chicago
     Press.
Clark, Eve. 1978. Locationals: Existential, locative, and
     possessive constructions.  in Joseph Greenberg, ed.,
     Universals of human language, vol. 4, Syntax, pp. 85-126. 
     Stanford: Stanford University Press.
DeLancey, Scott.  l984. Notes on agentivity and causation. Studies
     in Language 8.2.181-213.
_____. 1985. Agentivity in syntax. CLS Parasession on causatives
     and agentivity, pp. 1-12.
_____. 1990. Ergativity and the cognitive model of event structure
     in Lhasa Tibetan.  Cognitive Linguistics 1.3:289-321.
_____. ms.  Argument structure in English, Tibetan, and Klamath.
_____. 2000.  The Universal Basis of Case.  Logos and Language.
Dowty, David. 1989. On the semantic content of the notion of
     'thematic role'.  pp. 69-129 in G. Chierchia, et. al., eds.,
     Properties, types, and meaning, vol. II:  Semantic issues. 
     Dordrecht:  Kluwer.
Fillmore, Charles. 1968.  The case for case.  in E. Bach and R.
     Harms, eds., Universals in linguistic theory, pp. 1-90.  New
     York:  Holt, Rinehart.
_____.  1970. The grammar of hitting and breaking. in R. Jacobs and
     P. Rosenbaum, eds., Readings in English Transformational
     Grammar, pp. 120-133.  Waltham, MA, and London: Ginn.
_____.  1977. The case for case reopened.  in P. Cole and J.
     Sadock, eds., Syntax and Semantics 8:  Grammatical relations,
     pp. 59-82, New York:  Academic Press.
Ladusaw, William, and David Dowty. 1988. Toward a nongrammatical
     account of thematic roles.  pp. 62-73 in W. Wilkins, ed.,
     Syntax and semantics 21:  Thematic relations.  New York: 
     Academic Press.
Lakoff, George. 1977. Linguistic Gestalts.  CLS 13:236-87.
Lyons, John. 1967. A Note on Possessive, Existential, and Locative
     Sentences.  Foundations of Language 3.390-396.
Rosen, Carol. 1984.  The interface between semantic roles and
     grammatical relations. in Perlmutter and Rosen, eds., 1984,
     pp.  38-77.