Case and grammatical functions in Imbabura Quechua: An LFG approach

In Imbabura Quechua, accusative case occurs on core arguments that are patient-like to some degree, including patient, theme, causee, goal, and experiencer. There are double-accusative causative and transfer-ofpossession constructions that have the kind of typical asymmetrical objectf properties that are handled straightforwardly in Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) by the distinction between primary object (OBJ) and secondary object (OBJ†). The accusative case marker can be analyzed as going on both kinds of object because it is constrained to occur on NPs with the GF feature specification [+o]. In addition, there is a desiderative construction that can have no apparent subject and the experiencerargument realized with accusative case, possibly in addition to another patient-like accusative argument. In this case, the more patient-like accusative argument behaves like an OBJ† and the experiencer like an OBJ in some ways and like af subject in others. In earlier analyses (Jake 1985, Hermon 1985), the experiencer is analyzed as an object at some level and a subject at another. The properties of this construction can be accounted for in LFG by analyzing the experiencer as OBJ and attributing its subject-like properties to its status as pivot (PIV) in the sense of Falk (2006).