OBLIGATORY CONTOUR PRINCIPLE

1. (Autosegmental Phonology) A hypothesis that states that (certain) consecutive identical features are banned in underlying representations. The OCP is most frequently cited when discussing the tones of tonal languages (stating for example that the same morpheme may not have two underlying high tones), but it has also been applied to other aspects of phonology. The principle is part of the larger notion of horror aequi (or avoidance of identity) that language users generally avoid repetition of identical linguistic structures.
    Cf. van Oostendorp 2005, Guy and Boberg 1997, Mmusi 1992, Yip 1988, McCarthy 1986. | Wikipedia, 2024
2. (Autosegmental Phonology) The OCP was originally proposed as a prohibition against adjacent identical tones in lexical representations (Leben 1973), but in recent theoretical work it has been expanded to account for a variety of processes that involve avoidance of adjacent identical segments (McCarthy 1986) and adjacent identical features (Yip 1988). Yip suggested that the OCP is essentially a universal disfavoring of identical sequences on the same tier. McCarthy (1988) gave a general formulation of the principle: "Adjacent identical elements are prohibited." On a featured level, these observations might be formalized as:

   The Obligatory Contour Principle
   *[αF] [αF]

    | Gregory R. Guy and Charles Boberg, 1997
3. (Autosegmental Phonology) A sequence of adjacent identical tones can be represented:
   1. As a single tone mapped onto multiple vowels.
   2. As a one-to-one mapping between multiple tones and vowels.
   3. Or as a combination of these extremes.
    The Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) has been proposed as a constraint which restricts tonal representations to a one-to-many mapping between tones and vowels. | David Odden, 1986
4. (Autosegmental Phonology) Has been proposed as a fundamental constraint on autosegmental representations (Leben 1973, 1978, McCarthy 1986).

   Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP)
   Adjacent identical elements are prohibited.

    In the domain of tone, for example, the OCP rules out representations such as that in (1), in which two high tones are adjacent:
   1.  
       
       

      *H
        |
       σ

      H
       |
      σ
   
    | Scott Meyers, 1997
5. (Phonology) The OCP: "adjacent identical elements are prohibited".
   • Leben (1973), Goldsmith (1976): condition on underlying representations only, ruling out tone melodies like LHH.
   • McCarthy (1986): "antigemination". OCP blocks syncope between identical consonants.
   • Yip (1988), Myers (1987): OCP triggers segmental dissimilation (Yip) and tone deletion/delinking (Myers).
    A further issue: A further issue:
   • Like many putative universal principles of the era, the OCP doesn’t hold in every language (Odden 1988). Should we reject it outright?
   • In fact, a principle or output condition may be active in only some contexts in a language but inactive in others.In fact, a principle or output condition may be active in only some contexts in a language but inactive in others.
    Expressing a contingent truth:
   • The OCP prohibits adjacent identical elements except across morpheme boundaries (McCarthy 1986).
    | John J. McCarthy, 2005

OBLIGATORY CONTROL
(Syntax) Standard instances of (obligatory) control are present in the following sentences:

1. Susan [promised]_V1 us to [help]_V2 .
   (Subject control with the obligatory control predicate promise)
2. Fred [stopped]_V1 [laughing]_V2 .
   (Subject control with the obligatory control predicate stop)
3. We [tried]_V1 to [leave]_V2 .
   (Subject control with the obligatory control predicate try)
4. Sue [asked]_V1 Bill to [stop]_V2 .
   (Object control with the obligatory control predicate ask)
5. They [told]_V1 you to [support]_V2 the effort.
   (Object control with the obligatory control predicate tell)
6. Someone [forced]_V1 him to [do]_V2 it.
   (Object control with the obligatory control predicate force)

OBLIQUE CASE

1. (Syntax) Non-canonical case which is assigned by a governing preposition. (Chomsky 1981) | Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics, 2001
2. (Grammar) In German, oblique Cases (dative and genitive) require morphological licensing while structural Cases (nominative and accusative) do not. | Josef Bayer, Markus Bader and Michael Meng, 2001
3. (Grammar) A morphological case of English pronouns, the oblique case (object pronouns such as me, him, her, us) is used for the direct or indirect object of a verb, for the object of a preposition, for an absolute disjunct, and sometimes for the complement of a copula. | Wikipedia, 2025
4. (Examples)
    ○ Like certain Kurdish and Zazaki dialects, several Pamiri languages display double oblique case marking in which both the A and P argument of a transitive take oblique case in the past tense. | Daniel Kaufman, 2017
    ○ According to a line of analysis developed by Manzini and Savoia (2011, a.o.) for certain Romance and Balkan languages, oblique cases are two-place predicates; specifically, genitive in the DP domain and dative in the vP domain introduce a part-whole relation between a whole (the possessor) and a part (the possessee). | M. Rita Manzini and Leonardo M. Savoia, 2017
    ○ Manifestations of oblique case in Serbian/Croatian (specifically, the dative and the instrumental) present a puzzling pattern of distribution. | Julia Horvath, 2014
    ○ The assimilating of the nominal flexional forms, particularly of the oblique cases (genitive-dative) evinces uncommonly great difficulties for children. This arises not only from difficulties inherent to their contents, to the logic relations expressed by them, but also from the inconsistency of the morphologic-syntactical expression in literary Rumanian. | Tatiana Slama-Cazacu, 1962

OBLIQUE OBJECT

1. (Grammar) A grammatical relation proposed for a noun phrase clause constituent with the following characteristics:
   1. Its nature and behavior are more readily describable in semantic terms than syntactic.
   2. It is likely to be the most constrained in the semantic roles it may individually express.
   3. It is likely to be marked by an adposition or case affix .
   4. It is not likely to be a target of syntactic rules, such as agreement with the verb, or strategies of relativization.
    | Alphabetical Glossary of Linguistic Terms, ?
2. (Grammar) Certain predicates are semantically transitive but syntactically intransitive in Vancouver Island Halkomelem (Central Salish; Vancouver Island, Canada). Thompson and Thompson ([1992]) note of cognate constructions in the Thompson language that they "... imply effect on some entity." The effected entity may be introduced in Halkomenum by the preposition ʔə, forming an oblique complement rather than a direct object. Compare, for example, the following transitive / intransitive sentence pairs, where -t is a transitive suffix and both -m and -els are intransitive suffixes.
   1. Transitive
      nemʔ
      go

      cən
      I

      q̓^wə́lət
      barbecue-TRANS

      t^θə
      ART

      scééɫtən
      salmon

      'I am going to barbecue the salmon.'
   2. Intransitive
      nemʔ
      go

      cən
      I

      q̓^wə́ləm
      barbecue-INTR

      ʔə
      PREP

      t^θə
      ART

      scééɫtən
      salmon

      'I am going to barbecue the salmon.'
   3. Transitive
      niʔ
      AUX

      cən
      I

      lək^wát
      break-TRANS

      t^θə
      ART

      sc̓ešt
      stick

      'I broke the stick.'
   4. Intransitive
      niʔ
      AUX

      cən
      I

      lək^wels
      break-INTR

      ʔə
      PREP

      t^θə
      ART

      sc̓ešt
      stick

      'I broke the stick'
   
    As the semantic role of such oblique complements seems analogous to that of direct objects, let us call them oblique objects. | Thomas E. Hukari, 1979
3. (Example) Following the terminology of Hukari (1979), I refer to themes of ditransitives as oblique objects, thus distinguishing them from semantically oblique NPs, which I refer to simply as obliques. As summarized in the table below, case marking and extraction taken together can be used to distinguish the three types of non-subject nominals in Halkomelem (Central Salish; British Columbia, Canada):

   Properties of objects and obliques in Halkomelem
   	OBJECTS	OBLIQUE OBJECTS	OBLIQUES
   CASE MARKING	∅	preposition ʔə	preposition ʔə
   EXTRACTION	direct	via nominalization with s-	via nominalization with š(xw)-

    | Donna B. Gerdts, 2010

OBLIQUE SUBJECT CONSTRUCTION
(Grammar) Oblique subjects must be assumed to have existed not only in Old Germanic but also in Old Romance. However, predicates selecting for subject-like obliques are not confined to Germanic and Old French, but exist in all the archaic and ancient Indo-European languages. The following examples from Latin, Greek, Lithuanian and Russian (Bauer 2000) suffice to illustrate this point:

1. a.
    

   fratris
   brother.GEN

   me
   me.ACC

   pudet
   is-ashamed

     (Latin)
   

     'I am ashamed of my brother'
   b.
    

   melei
   cares

   moi
   me.DAT

   tinos
   something.GEN

   (Greek)
    

     'I care for something'
   c.
    

   mán
   me.DAT

   nëzti
   itches

      (Lithuanian)
    

     'I itch'
   d.
    

   mne
   me.DAT

   žalʼ
   feel-sorry

   vašu
   your.ACC

   sestru
   sister.ACC

     (Russian)
    

     'I am sorry for your sister'

OBLIQUE SUBJECT HYPOTHESIS
(Grammar) Our goal in this article is to show that the nonnominative subject-like oblique of impersonal predicates (1) and dative passives (2) behaves syntactically as a subject in Germanic. We refer to this radical hypothesis as the oblique subject hypothesis. There is a consensus in the linguistic community that Modern Icelandic and Faroese exhibit oblique subjects, exemplified by the dative mér in (1a) and (2a).

1. a. Icelandic

    
    

   Mér
   me.DAT

   er
   is

   kalt.
   cold
   b. German

    
    

   Mir
   me.DAT

   ist
   is

   kalt.
   cold

     'I'm freezing.'
2. a. Icelandic

    
    

   Mér
   me.DAT

   var
   was

   hjálpað.
   helped
   b. German

    
    

   Mér
   me.DAT

   var
   was

   hjálpað.
   helped

     'I was helped.'

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