Linguipedia: New page: The term '''oblique''' is often used to refer to the grammatical relation of arguments or adjuncts that are coded in some special way (by means of an adposition or a [[sema...

2007-08-30T15:48:41Z

New page: The term '''oblique''' is often used to refer to the grammatical relation of arguments or adjuncts that are coded in some special way (by means of an adposition or a [[sema...

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The term '''oblique''' is often used to refer to the [[grammatical relation]] of [[argument]]s or [[adjunct]]s that are coded in some special way (by means of an [[adposition]] or a [[semantic case]]), contrasting with [[core argument]]s, which are generally coded without case-marking or with [[grammatical case]]-marking.

===Examples===
In the sentence ''On Monday Maria sent a letter to her mother by e-mail'', the three prepositional phrases ''on Monday'', ''to her mother'', and ''by e-mail'' would be considered obliques by many linguists. Note that ''on Monday'' and ''by e-mail'' are [[adjunct]]s, while ''to her mother'' is an [[argument]]; typically the term ''oblique'' is neutral with respect to the adjunct-argument distinction and is defined by the coding patterns.

===Polysemy===
*[[oblique case]] refers to non-[[nominative case]].

===Origin===
The term ''oblique'' must have been inspired by [[oblique case]], though its meanings diverges considerably. It is a technical term in Relational Grammar, and it may well be that it spread to linguistics from there.

===Reference===
* [[Sandra A. Thompson|Thompson, Sandra A.]] 1997. "Discourse motivations for the core-oblique distinction as a language universal." In Kamio, Akio (ed.) ''Directions in functional linguistics.'' Amsterdam: Benjamins, 59-82.

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[[Category:Syntax]]

Oblique (a grammatical relation) - Revision history

Linguipedia: New page: The term '''oblique''' is often used to refer to the grammatical relation of arguments or adjuncts that are coded in some special way (by means of an adposition or a [[sema...