Article published in:
Differential objects and datives – a homogeneous class?
Edited by Monica Alexandrina Irimia and Anna Pineda
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes 42:1] 2019
► pp. 7–30

dom and datives in Basque

Not as homogeneous as they might seem

| University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

This paper analyzes the syntax of dom and causee, experiencer, goal and possessor datives in Basque. It presents novel criteria distinguishing their categorical status: the possibility (i) to license Depictive Secondary Predication (DSP) and (ii) to appear as non-agreeing in contexts affected by the Person Case Constraint (PCC). It argues that, contrary to the rest of the datives, goals are generated as PPs, since they are unable to license DSP, but able to occur as non-agreeing in PCC-affected contexts. Besides, despite exhibiting the same categorical status as causee, experiencer and possessor datives, it claims that dom objects are syntactically identical to canonical absolutives, as they show the same configurational as well as Case licensing pattern, which is based on v-Agree.

Keywords: Basque, syntax, Differential Object Marking (dom), datives
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.DSP and the original syntactic category of dative arguments
    • 2.1The restriction on the controller
    • 2.2The categorical origin of dative arguments
  • 3.The PCC and the syntax of the arguments implicated in it
    • 3.1Preliminaries
    • 3.2The dative markers in the finite verbal form
    • 3.3 dom objects and the PCC
    • 3.4The PP repair strategy
      • 3.4.1With PP-like datives
      • 3.4.2With DP datives
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 July 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00027.odr
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