Losing a subject, keeping an indirect object: On the “semi-grammaticalized” speech verb in Meadow Mari

Abstract

This paper investigates grammaticalization of speech verbs with special attention to the status of the indirect object (the goal argument). Based on a double dative construction and a semi-grammaticalized speech verb occurring in this construction in Meadow Mari, I suggest that there exists a stage of grammaticalization where the original speech verb loses its external argument (the subject) but retains its indirect object. I argue that this stage follows from Saito’s (2019, 2021) analysis of grammaticalization of speech verbs.