On Category Of Cases In Sumerian From The Perspective Of Universal Grammar

Case, a category basic in morphosyntax, has been more or less noticed and explained in sporadic philological studies and in systematic linguistic theories. In this dissertation, Sumerian, the so far earliest recorded language, becomes the core for a tentative utilization of the mode of Universal Grammar, which is composed of both the formal syntax used to analyze an idealized syntactic model and the typology used to refine from multiplied grammatical phenomena based on some multilingual corpus.The previous studies of Sumerian grammar are overall gained from the description of the cuneiform data involved in the structuralist frame. All those achievements put forward to a solid basis for the proceeding explanatory practices. This dissertation focuses on the cases in Sumerian, of which absolutive, ergative, and genitive will be analyzed comprehensively.Absolutive, which is unmarked and, accordingly, basic in the Sumerian Case system, functions only as the internal argument in its main syntactic constructions. Based on this conclusion, such hot topics in grammatical studies as copulas, existential verbs, naturality verbs, and conjunction of small clauses are analyzed in details in terms of typology. The successful reasoning lies in the fact that, on the basis of differentiation of proper from peripheral naturality verbs, this type of verbs is syntactically analyzed as a type of unaccusative verbs incorporating their internal arguments. Ergative is an outstanding hallmark of the Sumerian Case system. After investigating this term's Chinese translation history, we make a comprehensive analysis of ergativity in Sumerian in the framework of Universal Grammar. First, all its characteristics in constructions are introduced. Second, we argue that the double person agreement of absolutive and ergative NPs cross-referenced in the finite verbal chains comes actually from some simple augmentation to a universal single person agreement including ergative, under which a renewed classification of verbs is made according to transitivity for Universal Grammar. Third, we argue that some pronominal subjects marked with the ergative Case in Sumerian are caused by the steady execution of the ergative Case-marker in some conditions. In the meantime, we hold that the split ergativity in Sumerian refers not only to that in VP but also to that in NP, excluding some special syntactic modes in such moods as cohortative and imperative. Finally, the ergative Case-markers, which might show the same morphology with instrumental, genitive, locative, and dative, are investigated one by one from the perspective of typology, and the merger ergativity into directive in Sumerian should be regarded as merger into dative, and then ergative can also be merged into ablative, resulting in a tentative analysis of the'you'-clause type in Chinese.Genitive in Sumerian develops itself into different forms. All the Sumerian genitive constructions are studied in succession. The conclusions hereof are that the less frequently anticipatory genitive is the basic construction, from which arises the normal genitive construction by means of some syntactic movement; that the newly-found external genitive construction can be inferred from the anticipatory genitive construction in the syntactic level and indicate a rough Genitive Accessibility Hierarchy on conditions of multiplied language data; that the genitive qualities in Sumerian are found to restrict the syntactic features of reflexive pronouns and the syntactic expressions of relative constructions among which the nominalization is separated from relativization, with the latter extracting NP in a regularized Case hierarchy.As for equative and the dimensional Cases, both time and data impose restrictions on comprehensive studies in this thesis. Equative has been located syntactically based on the previous description of its morphosyntactic features, with its equative comparativity pointed out typologically. And the so-called dimensional Cases include dative, comitative, ablative, terminative, directive, and locative, all acting as adjuncts in syntactic constructions. The related studies are attempted to analyze the compound particles composed mainly of dimensional Case-markers and to make syntactic saliency of the Sumerian causative, benefactive, and malefactive constructions on the typological background: the syntactic qualities of dative and directive in Sumerian causative construction are indicated; causative and benefactive constructions are integrated syntactically at the core of light verbs; the Cases used to express maleficiary in Sumerian are classified and develop into their typological investigation.This dissertation, centering upon the Case system in Sumerian and making analyses syntactically from the typological perspective, draws relevant conclusions from Sumerian data, the findings of which are Universal Grammar terminus-oriented. From this point, Sumerian can be regarded as a patterned language with many morphosyntactic characteristics of primitive expressions, which is of great reference value to grammarians.