The Proleptic Accusative as an exceptional Exceptional Case Marking construction

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the so-called proleptic accusative. This construction type is rare, but attested in a number of different languages. Here, we discuss data from Middle Dutch in particular, which enables us to shed new light on the matter. We show that the proleptic accusative is crucially different from complex cases of raising. Instead, we explore two novel and competing hypotheses about its structural properties. We first argue that an analysis in terms of clausal coordination and ellipsis straightforwardly solves a number of syntactic complications, but this leads to problems with semantic interpretation in various cases. We then propose that the seemingly additional accusative argument in the matrix can be base-generated as an embedded hanging topic of the complement clause involved. This requires exceptional accusative case marking across a clause boundary by the matrix verb. The necessary combination of various prerequisites explains why the proleptic accusative is only sporadically found across languages. Importantly, however, it is now clear how this complex construction type can be decomposed into more basic syntactic ingredients, voiding the need to enrich the model of grammar with additional stipulations.