Re: THEORY: Why more than two grammatical relations?

On Wed, 7 May 2008 13:54:12 -0400, Eldin Raigmore wrote:
...
>In clauses where some object of the verb must be
>given the genitive case, this is usually an example of "quirky" or "non-
>canonical" object-marking; of "quirky case".
What do you mean by "usually"? I've never seen a German grammar that would
not consider them to be (genitive) objects.

>>Prepositional objects are considered objects because the prepositions are not
>>chosen according to their semantics, but are determined by the verb in much
>>the same way objects are.
>
>Wow! I didn't know that!
>
>So, maybe the "prepositional objects" _are_ objects of the verb;
Yes, that's what they are according to many German grammars, if I'm not
mistaken. I only recall the Duden grammar right now, but I'm quite confident
that there are others too that share this analysis.

>in which case
>they're probably in grammatical relations.
>
>(Unless I've misunderstood you, and "prepositional objects" are just another
>set of examples of "quirky case" non-canonical marking of direct or indirect
>objects.)
I have the impression that the term "prepositional objects" is just as alien
to English Linguistics as the term "grammatical relation" is to German
Linguistics. Coming from a German Linguistics background, it would seem
quite obvious to me that English prepositional phrases such as "Smithers
thought of Burns", "Milhouse longed for Lisa" or "Homer agreed with Lisa"
would be considered "prepositional objects" because these prepositions are
not chosen according to their semantics, but are determined by the verb.

---
grüess
mach

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