Der deutsche Dativ genealogisch und diachron

Abstract

Abstract The German dative case from genealogic and diachronic perspective. A language-change study about the third case. The dative case belongs to the so-called syncretistic cases, i. e., it encodes multiple functions inherited from the Indo-European cases locative, instrumental, ablative and dative. The paper aims to show the emergence of diverse case functions formally encoded by the dative case from a common base which is assumed to have the locative semantics. The decisive point was, according to the hypothesis, the development of the directional function towards the object or away from it. The addressee dative arose as a result of a specific reanalysis of movement semantics. The so-called dative of subject emerged from reanalysis of the subject-related experiencer function.