In:Perspectives on Semantic Roles
Edited by Silvia Luraghi and Heiko Narrog
[Typological Studies in Language 106] 2014
► pp. 181–204
The Morphosyntax of the Experiencer in Early Vedic
Published online: 19 August 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.106.06dah
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.106.06dah
This paper examines the encoding of Experiencer arguments in Early Vedic, the earliest attested stage of Indo-Aryan. Although Experiential predicates show a broad variety of case-marking patterns in this language, the Experiencer is primarily expressed by the nominative, the accusative or the dative. In this respect, this semantic role differs from other roles like Agent, Patient, Recipient or Benefactive which show a more restricted range of case-marking options. Examining the distribution of the three Experiencer constructions, I demonstrate that there is a strong tendency in Early Vedic for the Experiencer to be construed as subject with Experiential verbs, although some experiential verbs show an inverted argument realization construction, where the Stimulus is expressed as subject and the Experiencer as object. Keywords: Vedic Sanskrit; Experiencer; Proto-Roles; Argument realization; Case-marking
References (23)
Bickel, Baltasar. 2004. The syntax of experiencers in the Himalayas. In Non-nominative Subjects [Typological Studies in Language 60–61], Peri Bhaskararao & Karumuri Venkata Subbarao (eds), 77–112. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Bossong, Georg. 1998. Le marquage de l’experient dans les langues de l’Europe. In Actance et valence dans les langues de l’Europe [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 20–2], Jack Feuillet (ed.), 259–294. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Dahl, Eystein. 2010. Time, Tense and Aspect in Early Vedic Grammar. Exploring Inflectional Semantics in the Rigveda. Leiden: Brill.
. Forthcoming. ‘Aspects of the morphosyntax and semantics of the Early Vedic -tá participle and its prehistory’. In Ergativity in Indo-Aryan. Selected papers from the workshop on Ergativity in Indo-Aryan at the SLE 43rd annual meeting [Typological Studies in Language], Eystein Dahl and Krzysztof Stroński (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Dahl, Eystein & Fedriani, Chiara. 2012. The argument structure of experience: Experiential constructions in Early Vedic, Homeric Greek and Early Latin. Transactions of the Philological Society 110(3): 1–21.
Dik, Simon C. 1997. The Theory of Functional Grammar, Part 1: The Structure of the Clause, 2nd edn. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Fried, Miriam. 2005. A frame-based approach to case alternations: The swarm-class verbs in Czech. Cognitive Linguistics 16(3): 475–512.
Grimm, Scott. 2005. The Lattice of Case and Agentivity. MSc Dissertation, University of Amsterdam.
Haig, Geoffrey. 2009. Non-canonical subjects and alignment change – where’s the connection? Handout from the Workshop ‘Reconstructing Alignment Systems’ May 14–15, 2009.
Haspelmath, Martin. 2001. Non-canonical marking of core arguments in European languages. In Non-canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects [Typological Studies in Language 46], Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Robert M.W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds), 53–83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hock, Hans H. 1991. Oblique Subjects in Sanskrit? In Experiencer Subjects in South Asian Languages, Manindra K. Verma & Karuvannur Puthanveettil Mohanan (eds), 119–139. Stanford CA: CSLI.
Klein, Jared. 1985. Toward a Discourse Grammar of the Rigveda, Vol. 1: Coordinate Conjunctions, Part 1. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Kulikov, Leonid. 2012. The Vedic -ya-presents. Passives and Intransitivity in Old Indo-Aryan. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Lehmann, Christian. 1991. Predicate classes and PARTICIPATION. In Partizipation: Das sprachliche Erfassen von Sachverhalten, Hansjakob Seiler & Waldfried Premper (eds), 183–239. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Næss, Åshild. 2007. Prototypical Transitivity [Typological Studies in Language 72]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Primus Beatrice. 1999. Cases and Thematic Roles: Ergative, Accusative and Active. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Smith, Michael B. 1993. Cases as conceptual categories: Evidence from German. In Conceptualizations and Mental Processes in Language [Cognitive Linguistic Research 3], Richard A. Geiger & Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn (eds), 531–566. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Van Valin Jr., Robert D. 1993. A synopsis of role and reference grammar. In Advances in Role and Reference Grammar [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 82], Robert D. Van Valin Jr. (ed), 1–164. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Verhoeven, E. 2007. Experiential Constructions in Yucatec Maya [Studies in Language Companion Series 87]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Carnesale, Lucrezia
Fedriani, Chiara
2021. Review of Alfieri, Benvenuto, Ciancaglini, Milizia & Pompeo (2018): Linguistica, filologia e storia culturale. In ricordo di Palmira Cipriano. Journal of Historical Linguistics 11:2 ► pp. 348 ff.
Comrie, Bernard, Diana Forker & Zaira Khalilova
2018. Affective constructions in Tsezic languages. In Non-canonically case-marked subjects [Studies in Language Companion Series, 200], ► pp. 55 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
