Chapter published in:
Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects: The Reykjavík-Eyjafjallajökull papers
Edited by Jóhanna Barðdal, Na'ama Pat-El and Stephen Mark Carey
[Studies in Language Companion Series 200] 2018
► pp. 23–54

Non-nominative and depersonalized subjects in the Balkans

Areality vs. genealogy

| The University of Chicago & La Trobe University
| The Ohio State University & La Trobe University
The languages of the Balkan sprachbund are surveyed here with regard to their constructions that show non-nominative subjects, typically in impersonal constructions. The issue of origins is considered, specifically as to whether these constructions represent inheritances from some earlier stage of the relevant languages or instead reflect the effects of contact. In the end, it is argued that a mix of areality, i.e. contact, and genealogy, i.e. inheritance, is needed to explain these constructions, with a nod required as well to typologically common patternings.
Published online: 02 November 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.200.02fri
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