Analysis of the dative in impersonal constructions: the concepts of subject and semi-subject in ancient Greek

Abstract

Impersonal constructions holding a complement both in dative and genitive are attested in Greek with a few verbs, which share the property of expressing the interests or the needs of human beings. These constructions, which occur in several ancient Indo- European languages, are documented in the post- Homeric period in the case of Greek. In the opposite, personal constructions, which appear more recently in other languages, are already documented in Greek since Homer’s times. The dative in the impersonal construction refers to human entities, codes the Experiencer and it is also the topic. These properties, which are close to those of the prototypical subject, seem to allow the dative to show some subject-like syntactic behaviour. In fact, we will argue that the dative in the impersonal construction behaves as a semi-subject, i. e. a verbal complement which, regardless of its coding, does have a set of properties that are typically associated with the subject in Greek. As well as the complement in dative, the complement in genitive in the impersonal construction exhibits a syntactic behaviour similar to the subject. However, the genitive does not follow the same patterns the dative does in the impersonal construction.