none 10.1075/slcs.140.12hol John Benjamins Publishing Company John Benjamins Publishing Company 1757 67855557 1421283 1421186 202507031642000020 10.1075 2025-07-03T10:41:13Z 2014-03-23T11:09:57Z 26 0165-7763 10.1075/slcs https://benjamins.com/ catalog/slcs Ilja A. Seržant University of Bergen https://ror.org/03zga2b32 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8066-9251 Leonid Kulikov Ghent University https://ror.org/00cv9y106 This volume is an important contribution to the diachrony of non-canonical subjects in a typological perspective. The questions addressed concern the internal mechanisms and triggers for various changes that non-canonical subjects undergo, ranging from semantic motivations to purely structural explanations. The discussion encompasses the whole life-cycle of non-canonical subjects: from their emergence out of non-subject arguments to their expansion, demise or canonicization, focusing primarily on syntactic changes and changes in case-marking. The volume offers a number of different case studies comprising such languages as Italian, Spanish, Old Norse and Russian as well as languages less studied in this context, such as Latin, Classical Armenian, Baltic languages and some East Caucasian languages. Typological generalizations in the form of recurrent developmental paths are offered on the basis of data presented in this volume and in the literature. 140 11 29 2013 11 8 2013 9789027206077 9789027271303 John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam 10.1075/slcs.140 http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027271303 https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1075/slcs.140/html https://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/9789027271303.pdf Axel Holvoet University of Warsaw https://ror.org/039bjqg32 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1744-5893 The article discusses the subjecthood of datival least-oblique NPs (called ‘subject-like obliques’ in the introduction to this volume) in clauses based on intransitive two-place predicates, mainly with reference to Baltic and Slavonic. The approach in the article crucially invokes the notions of obliqueness hierarchy and case hierarchy. Canonical subjecthood being defined as the pairing of least-oblique status with nominative marking, structures without this canonical pairing are said to show diffuseness of subject properties, datival quasi-subjects occurring alongside demoted intransitive subjects (the parallel of ditransitive structures is invoked). It is argued that obliqueness adjustments, i. e. changes in case marking serving to bring it into accordance with syntactic obliqueness, are the driving force behind changes in case marking and grammatical relations in the constructions under discussion. 11 29 2013 11 8 2013 257 282 10.1075/slcs.140.12hol https://benjamins.com/catalog/slcs.140.12hol https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1075/slcs.140.12hol/html