The most important functions of the accusative in Old Persian are consistent with those in other ancient Indo-European languages: it marks the direct object of transitive verbs, and can express the spatial notions of goal and path, as well as the temporal notion of duration. Besides these functions, there are other, in some way ‘rare’ or ‘particular’ occurrences of the Old Persian accusative that have not yet been explained, or not explained convincingly. This paper aims to investigate two interesting uses of the accusative: the double accusative construction and the mām kāma construction. The following conclusions are reached regarding the semantic roles and the functions of the accusative case in the constructions under consideration: a) a higher degree of affectedness may account for the use of the double accusative in ditransitives with some classes of verbs; b) the mām kāma construction, in turn, is a construction with a modal function, and there are some indications that in this instance the accusative could be a non-canonical subject.

Some remarks on the accusative in Old Persian / Benvenuto, Maria Carmela; Pompeo, Flavia. - In: VICINO ORIENTE. - ISSN 2532-5159. - XXIII:(2019), pp. 81-93.

Some remarks on the accusative in Old Persian

Benvenuto Maria Carmela;Pompeo Flavia
2019

Abstract

The most important functions of the accusative in Old Persian are consistent with those in other ancient Indo-European languages: it marks the direct object of transitive verbs, and can express the spatial notions of goal and path, as well as the temporal notion of duration. Besides these functions, there are other, in some way ‘rare’ or ‘particular’ occurrences of the Old Persian accusative that have not yet been explained, or not explained convincingly. This paper aims to investigate two interesting uses of the accusative: the double accusative construction and the mām kāma construction. The following conclusions are reached regarding the semantic roles and the functions of the accusative case in the constructions under consideration: a) a higher degree of affectedness may account for the use of the double accusative in ditransitives with some classes of verbs; b) the mām kāma construction, in turn, is a construction with a modal function, and there are some indications that in this instance the accusative could be a non-canonical subject.
2019
accusative; double accusative; Old Persian
01 Pubblicazione su rivista::01a Articolo in rivista
Some remarks on the accusative in Old Persian / Benvenuto, Maria Carmela; Pompeo, Flavia. - In: VICINO ORIENTE. - ISSN 2532-5159. - XXIII:(2019), pp. 81-93.
File allegati a questo prodotto
File Dimensione Formato  
Benvenuto_Some-remarks-accusative_2019.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Versione editoriale (versione pubblicata con il layout dell'editore)
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 398.79 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
398.79 kB Adobe PDF

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1342918
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact