Re: Impersonal Passives and Quirky Case in Subject-Prominent Languages (was: Copula)

Quoting Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...>:


> Not in all I-E languages, if I remember correctly.  I believe someone on this
> list
> mentioned a Scandinavian language which he or she speaks, in which the
> verbs don't agree in any way with any of their participants.  So, triggering
> agreement is not a necessary condition of subject-hood in every I-E language.
Modern Swedish fits that bill. Verbs only inflect for TAM, all person and number
categories having collapsed. I think the same goes for Danish and Norwegian, but
I'm not 100%.

(However, predicates can show agreement if adjectives are involved, eg. _huset
är grönt_ "the house is green" vs _husen är gröna_ "the houses are green". You
get gender agreement too; _bollen är grön_ "the ball is green". Despite the same
thing happening in Spanish my Spanish teacher gets this wrong all the time,
perhaps because it breaks the wider pattern of non-agreement.)

                                                Andreas