[...]... to Athens’) 12 Modern Grammars of Case (Gildersleeve and Lodge 19 68: 214 ) Here the accusative marks the spatial goal of the movement signalled by the verb The nature of this alleged distinction between the casus rectus and the others, and variants of such a distinction, underlie much of the debate within modern grammars of case Not so much debated of late has been the problematical status of the vocative... mind 2 .1. 4 Conclusion: what is a grammar of case? At this point, against this exceedingly brief sketch of a historical background, we can perhaps give a rough characterization of what I shall call a level 1 grammar of case I suggest something along the lines of: Grammar of case level 1 A grammar of case gives an account of the syntax of the relations that in some languages are expressed by case inXections... title of one of the earliest publications in case grammar’—Charles Fillmore’s ‘Toward a Modern Theory of Case , of 19 65 The title also encapsulates the ambivalence of the term case , as denoting either the relations (semantic or grammatical) expressed by morphological case or that morphological means of expression itself In modern work on case , in either sense, much of the acknowledgment of the... localist hypothesis, we move on to more recent developments in ‘localist case grammar’ This chapter thus initiates discussion of ideas that emerged after the earliest period of case grammar’ We can conveniently locate the end of this period in the late 19 70s, the time of Fillmore’s partial ‘retraction’ (19 77) and of ‘defences’ of the case grammar’ hypothesis against early criticisms such as Anderson (19 77)... part of that chapter is devoted to one attempt to resolve the question of the identity of ‘cases’ and of case , an undertaking whose origins are rather ancient, namely the socalled ‘localist theory of case , whose early implementation in a variety of case grammar’ is discussed there The scare quotes around case grammar’ are a reminder that this approach is only one variety of a grammar of case Those... complement modiWes 1 Prologue By my title I’ve described the area that I want to look at here as modern grammars of case Much of the discussion will be concerned with the concept of case grammar’ that began to be developed in the late 19 60s I’ve chosen the label grammars of case here, rather than, say, case grammar’, to signal that it is misleading to see the tradition that came to be called case grammar’... falling from that Hence the use of the words decline and declension (Of course the nominative cannot be a real case, because it is upright and not falling.) (Meiklejohn 18 92: 19 , n.(i)) The Classical Tradition and its Critics 19 2 .1. 3 Primary and secondary functions I want now to note the existence of further reWnements of the systems of Rumpel (18 45; 18 66) and Holzweissig (18 77) These refinements have... signiWcant semantic connections among the elements of speech’ This is to anticipate in part a core proposition of later case grammar’ None of the grammars in the classical tradition provides an adequate articulation of a grammar of case, however The role of prepositions (and position), for instance, remains sketchy But something like a grammar of case of level 2 is often explicitly recognized as a desideratum... Critics 13 we know familiarly, and I have already referred to, as Gildersleeve and Lodge (19 68)—comes late in this tradition But still its description of the syntax of the cases occupies a large part of the segment of the grammar devoted to ‘qualiWcation of predicate’, as well as cases being invoked elsewhere in the syntax of the ‘simple sentence’, as in the discussion of the subject Sixtynine out of the... development of case grammar’, the case relations’ are regarded as ‘still meaningful, but in a quite abstract and general way’ (19 88: 12 3) The extent to which other syntactic categories are similarly grounded was one of the unresolved issues of early case grammar’ (and this was matched by similar controversy in other approaches to grammar in which grounding was not simply denied) 4 Modern Grammars of Case . Implementation of the Category of Case 6 Localist Case Grammar 11 5 6 .1 ‘Syntactic/logical’ case forms and localism 11 6 6 .1. 1 Nominative and genitive 11 7 6 .1. 2 Dative and accusative 11 9 6 .1. 3 Accusative. Raising 327 11 .1 Autonomy and transformations 3 31 11. 2 The role of the absolutive 334 11 .2 .1 The status of free absolutive 334 11 .2.2 The basic syntax of raising: raising with operatives 337 11 .2.3. The tradition 11 2 .1. 1 The syntax of case and adposition 12 2 .1. 2 Grammatical versus local cases 14 2 .1. 3 Primary and secondary functions 19 2 .1. 4 Conclusion: what is a grammar of case? 22 2.2