Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

inanimate noun in an ablative/instrumental case. Garrett describes the morphosyntactic
environment as well as its justification as a locus of change as follows:
According to this scheme, instrumental NPs in null-subject transitive clauses . . .
are reanalyzed diachronically as subjects. Such a reanalysis is permitted because
of the functional overlap between instrument and agent in clauses with transitive
predicates: cf. e.g. John opened the door with the key and the key opened the
door, or John extinguished the fire with water and water extinguished the fire. A
similar reanalysis cannot occur in clauses with intransitive predicates because
thematic instruments are rare or absent altogether in the subject position of
intransitive clauses. (Garrett 1990, 265)
I would argue that that [+locus] component of the ablative/instrumental case that
Garrett’s model calls for is coded by the old locative postposition, *-e, whereas the
directionality of the ablative/instrumental case is coded by the low source applicative,
*bi-.
Given these constraints, it may be useful at this point to imagine two templates for
such an environment that differ only in terms of the (in)alienability of the bare noun.
(75) NOUN animate-e (GOAL) NOUN inanimate-e (SOURCE) NOUN inalienable bi-√
(76) NOUN animate-e (GOAL) NOUN inanimate-e (SOURCE) NOUN alienable bi-√
In the old system, in which both perceived object (SOURCE) and perceiver (GOAL)
appeared in the same old locative case, *-e, the transfer of possession model was fairly
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