Ditransitives in Middle English: on semantic specialisation and the rise of the dative alternation

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (01) ◽  
pp. 149-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
EVA ZEHENTNER
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Causal Relation ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ditransitive Verbs

This article discusses the plausibility of a correlation or even a causal relation between two phenomena that can be observed in the history of English ditransitives. The changes concerned are: first, the emergence of the ‘dative alternation’, i.e. the establishment of a link between the double object construction (DOC) and its prepositional paraphrase, and second, a reduction in the range of verb classes associated with the DOC, with the construction's semantics becoming specialised to basic transfer senses. Empirically, the article is based on a quantitative analysis of the occurrences of the DOC as well as its prepositional competitors in thePenn–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, 2nd edition (PPCME2). On the basis of these results, it will be argued that the semantic narrowing and the increasing ability of ditransitive verbs to be paraphrased by ato-prepositional construction (to-POC) interacted in a bi-directional causal manner.

scholarly journals The semantics of the aan-construction in 16th-century Dutch: A semasiological and onomasiological approach

Literator ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dario Rens
Keyword(s):  
Direct Object ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ditransitive Verbs

This article focuses on the semantics of the Dutch aan-construction [NP V NP aan NP], for example, Jan geeft een boek aan Piet (‘Jan gives a book to Piet’) in the 16th-century. In modern Dutch the aan-construction is used as an alternative to the Dutch double object construction, but previous research suggests that the use of ditransitive verbs in the Dutch aan-construction is only a 16th-century innovation – this alternation is called the ‘dative alternation’. However, it is not clear which ditransitive verbs initiated the dative alternation. Colleman (2010) believes that the first instances of the ditransitive use of the aan-construction are concrete physical movements of the direct object from the subject to the indirect object; however, he argues there is no quantitative proof to support those claims. In a self-compiled corpus of 16th-century Dutch, this article tries to find the evidence which is needed to underpin Colleman’s hypothesis by making use of the distinctive collexeme analysis and its diachronic variant. The results show that the first ditransitive instances of the aan-construction are indeed concrete uses, but that there is also an increase in the metaphorical use of the construction.

scholarly journals ‘Give it him and then I’ll give you money for it’. The dative alternation in Contemporary British English

2018 ◽  
pp. 15-28
Author(s):  
Juan Lorente Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Double Object ◽  
British English ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Ditransitive Verbs ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Prepositional Object ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

‘Dative alternation’ refers to a linguistic phenomenon related to ditransitive verbs, that is, verbs which take a subject and two objects referring to a theme and a recipient. In English, the phenomenon offers the possibility of alternation between a prepositional object construction (PREP), where the recipient is encoded as a prepositional phrase (give it to him), a double object construction (DOC), where the recipient precedes the theme (give him it) and an alternative double object construction (altDOC), where the theme takes precedence over the recipient (give it him), the latter constrained to dialectal usage. Even though this alternation has been extensively addressed in the literature, few studies have considered language-external factors in determining the choice of encoding. This paper analyses the distribution of ditransitive forms in competition in contemporary British English from a twofold perspective, shedding some light on the distribution of these variants across time, along with the study of PREP, DOC and altDOC in relation to their sociolinguistic dimension. The corpus used as source of evidence is the British National Corpus, a 100-million-word collection of both written and spoken language from a wide range of sources.

Ambiguity avoidance as a factor in the rise of the English dative alternation

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Zehentner
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Cue Reliability ◽  
History Of ◽  
Potential Impact

Abstract This paper discusses the role of cognitive factors in language change; specifically, it investigates the potential impact of argument ambiguity avoidance on the emergence of one of the most well-studied syntactic alternations in English, viz. the dative alternation (We gave them cake vs We gave cake to them). Linking this development to other major changes in the history of English like the loss of case marking, I propose that morphological as well as semantic-pragmatic ambiguity between prototypical agents (subjects) and prototypical recipients (indirect objects) in ditransitive clauses plausibly gave a processing advantage to patterns with higher cue reliability such as prepositional marking, but also fixed clause-level (SVO) order. The main hypotheses are tested through a quantitative analysis of ditransitives in a corpus of Middle English, which (i) confirms that the spread of the PP-construction is impacted by argument ambiguity and (ii) demonstrates that this change reflects a complex restructuring of disambiguation strategies.

scholarly journals Locating variation in the dative alternation

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Biggs
Keyword(s):  
Double Object ◽  
British English ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Main Variety ◽  
Syntactic Properties

This paper investigates the structure of the dative alternation in dialects of Northwest British English. This includes theme passivization of apparent Double Object Constructions (It was given her). Detailed investigation shows that different dialects use distinct licensing strategies to derive the Theme passive structure. The main variety discussed is Liverpool English, where Theme passivisation is shown to derive from a prepositional dative with a null preposition. In contrast, Manchester English, a neighbouring variety, derives Theme passives of the Double Object Construction, via an Applicative configuration (Haddican 2010, Haddican and Holmberg 2012). The study shows that a range of syntactic properties and restrictions on a structure can be traced back to variation in the functional lexicon.

Exploring epicentres empirically

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Th. Gries ◽  
Tobias Bernaisch
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Random Effects ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Indian English ◽  
British English ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Deviation Analysis ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Object Construction

The present paper studies the dative alternation with GIVE, i.e. the alternation between the double-object construction (e.g. John gave Mary a book) and the prepositional dative (e.g. John gave a book to Mary), in relation to the norms underlying this constructional choice in six South Asian Englishes. Via Multifactorial Prediction and Deviation Analysis with Regression (MuPDAR) including random effects, we identify (i) factors triggering different constructional choices in South Asian Englishes in comparison to British English and (ii) the linguistic epicentre of English in South Asia with regard to the dative alternation. We are able to show that discourse accessibility of patient and recipient as well as pronominality of recipient are actuators of structural nativisation in South Asian Englishes and — in agreement with a more general sociolinguistic approach — find via a bottom-up approach that Indian English may be regarded as the linguistic epicentre of English for South Asia.

A smuggling approach to the dative alternation

2020 ◽  
pp. 96-107
Author(s):  
Chris Collins
Keyword(s):  
Double Object ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Object Construction

This chapter proposes a smuggling approach to the dative alternation. On the basis of traditional c-command tests, it is argued that the prepositional dative example in (ii) is derived from the structure underlying the double object construction in (i). i. John gave Mary the car (Double Object Construction). ii. John gave the car to Mary (Prepositional Dative). A smuggling analysis is motivated for the derivation of (ii). Once the VP containing the theme is moved over the goal, the theme then moves to a higher A position c-commanding the goal. Lastly, it is shown how the distribution of particles provides support for the smuggling analysis.

Meaning construction and motivation in the English benefactive double object construction

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-111
Author(s):  
Pilar Guerrero Medina
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Surface Form ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Cognitive Principles

Abstract This paper explores the interaction between verbal and constructional semantics in the benefactive double object construction in English. My main aim is to disentangle the semantics of the construction exploring the constructional potential of the main alternating verb classes, i.e., verbs of “obtaining”, “creation” and “preparing” (Levin, 1993), and spelling out the cognitive principles that motivate these and other extended uses as cases of lexical-constructional subsumption within the framework of the Lexical Constructional Model (cf. Galera Masegosa & Ruiz de Mendoza, 2012; Ruiz de Mendoza, 2013). Rather than advocating a polysemous analysis of the ditransitive, as proposed by Goldberg (1992, 1995), the position I take here is that ditransitives with beneficiary arguments and ditransitives with prototypical recipient arguments instantiate two different subconstructions which cannot be treated under the same general rubric, in spite of their “shared surface form” (Goldberg, 2002, p. 330).

Syntax of Ditransitives

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Harley ◽  
Shigeru Miyagawa
Keyword(s):  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Double Object Construction ◽  
Hierarchical Relationship ◽  
Class A ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
The Face ◽  
Ditransitive Verbs ◽  
Ditransitive Constructions

Ditransitive predicates select for two internal arguments, and hence minimally entail the participation of three entities in the event described by the verb. Canonical ditransitive verbs include give, show, and teach; in each case, the verb requires an agent (a giver, shower, or teacher, respectively), a theme (the thing given, shown, or taught), and a goal (the recipient, viewer, or student). The property of requiring two internal arguments makes ditransitive verbs syntactically unique. Selection in generative grammar is often modeled as syntactic sisterhood, so ditransitive verbs immediately raise the question of whether a verb may have two sisters, requiring a ternary-branching structure, or whether one of the two internal arguments is not in a sisterhood relation with the verb. Another important property of English ditransitive constructions is the two syntactic structures associated with them. In the so-called “double object construction,” or DOC, the goal and theme both are simple NPs and appear following the verb in the order V-goal-theme. In the “dative construction,” the goal is a PP rather than an NP and follows the theme in the order V-theme-to goal. Many ditransitive verbs allow both structures (e.g., give John a book/give a book to John). Some verbs are restricted to appear only in one or the other (e.g. demonstrate a technique to the class/*demonstrate the class a technique; cost John $20/*cost $20 to John). For verbs which allow both structures, there can be slightly different interpretations available for each. Crosslinguistic results reveal that the underlying structural distinctions and their interpretive correlates are pervasive, even in the face of significant surface differences between languages. The detailed analysis of these questions has led to considerable progress in generative syntax. For example, the discovery of the hierarchical relationship between the first and second arguments of a ditransitive has been key in motivating the adoption of binary branching and the vP hypothesis. Many outstanding questions remain, however, and the syntactic encoding of ditransitivity continues to inform the development of grammatical theory.

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