Case Variation in Guarani

  • Received : 2010.05.18
  • Accepted : 2010.06.14
  • Published : 2010.06.30

Abstract

This article is a description of the case variation in Guarani Language, which is a relatively, rarely studied language, and more so about case phenomena. Guarani has two remarkable facts about case. First, it has two overt accusative case markers, which are differentiated by the semantic notion of boundedness as in Jackendoff(1990, 1991). The existence of accusative case markers in Guarani is attested by their behavior in the typical transitive verb sentences, the ability to occur in ECM constructions, and the interpretation of specificity which is parallel to Turkish accusative case marker realization reported in Enc(1991). Second, accusative case forms occur in adjunct positions as well as object positions in Guarani. To capture these peculiar case phenomena, an account based on some recent Minimalist ideas about case checking from Legate(2008), Bowers(2010) is shown to be available.

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