Cover not available
Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2012: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' Leuven 2012
Edited by Karen Lahousse and Stefania Marzo
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 6] 2014
► pp. 123–140

What lies behind dative/accusative alternations in Romance

This paper accounts for dative/accusative alternations in several Romance languages with verbs with one complement of person, such as Catalan telefonar [DAT a la Roser]/telefonar [ACC la Roser] ‘to phone Roser’. Although the paper focuses on Catalan and Spanish, reference is also made to Italian Southern dialects and Asturian. Regardless of their case-marking, these complements are always Goals of unergative verbs: if dative-marked, they behave as expected; if accusative-marked, they instantiate what we call Differential Indirect Object Marking (following Bilous 2011). The two options of case-assignment are due to two different sorts of Low Applicatives, one Romance-like (the dative-assigning one) and the other English-like (the accusative-assigning one). The postulation of an Applicative Head with our apparently unergative verbs follows from analysing them as hidden transitive verbs (light verb + cognate noun).

Published online: 18 December 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.6.06pin
References
D’Alessandro, Roberta
2013 “Microvariation and Syntactic Theory. What Dialects Can Tell Us about Language.” Ms, The Syntactic Variation of Catalan and Spanish Dialects , Barcelona July 2013.
Andriani, Luigi
2011. Differential Object marking, Clitic Doubling and Argument Structure in Barese. Research Master Thesis, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Arad, Maya
1998 VP-structure and the Syntax-Lexicon Interface. PhD Dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar
Bilous, Rostyslav
2011 Transitivité et marquage d’objet différentiel. PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Blume, Kerstin
1998 “A Contrastive Analysis of Interaction Verbs with Dative Complements.” Linguistics 36 (2): 253-280. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cabré, Teresa, and Jaume Mateu
1998 “Estructura gramatical i normativa lingüística: a propòsit dels verbs psicològics en català.” Quaderns. Revista de Traducció 2: 65-81.Google Scholar
Chung, Sandra
1978 Case Marking and Grammatical Relations in Polynesian. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Cuervo, María Cristina
2003a Datives at Large. PhD Dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
2003b “Structural Asymmetries but Same Word Order: the Dative Alternation in Spanish.” In Asymmetry in Grammar. Volume 1: Syntax and semantics, ed. by Anna Maria Di Sciullo, 117-144. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diccionari de l’Institut Catalans
Available at [URL].
Doggett, Teal Bissell
2004 All things being unequal: Locality in movement. PhD Dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
DPD = Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas
Available at [URL].
DRAE = Diccionario de la Lengua Española
Available at [URL].
Fernández, Beatriz, and Jon Ortiz de Urbina
2009 Datibo alternatiboak hiztegian eta hizkeretan. Ms, Euskararen sintaxia XXVII. Donostiako Uda ikastaroak / XXI Europar ikastaroak 2009 -ko uztailaren 2-3.Google Scholar
Fournier, David H
2010 La structure du prédicat verbal: une étude de la construction à double objet en français. PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth, and Samuel Jay Keyser
2002 Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jónsson, Jóhannes Gísli
2010 Dative/Accusative Variation and Event Structure in Icelandic. Ms, 4th European Dialect Syntax Meeting.Google Scholar
McGinnis, Martha J
1998 Locality in A-Movement. PhD Dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Morant, Marc
2008 L’alternança datiu/acusatiu en la recció verbal catalana. PhD Dissertation, Universitat de València.Google Scholar
NGLE = Real Academia española i Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española
2009 Nueva Gramática de la Lengua Española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar
Pérez-Saldanya, Manuel
2004 Gramaticalització i reanàlisi: funció i estructura del canvi sintàctic. Ms, Xarxa Telemàtica de Lingüística Teòrica.Google Scholar
Pineda, Anna
2013 “Double Object Constructions in Spanish (and Catalan) Revisited.” In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2011, ed. by S. Baauw, F.A.C. Drijkoningen, L. Meroni and M. Pinto, 193-216. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pylkkänen, Liina
2002 Introducing Arguments. PhD Dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Ramos, Joan Rafel
2005 “El Complement indirecte: l’alternança datiu / acusatiu.” Estudis romànics / publicats a cura de A.M. Badia i Margarit i Joan Veny 27: 94-111.Google Scholar
Solà, Joan
1994 Sintaxi normativa: estat de la qüestió. Barcelona: Empúries.Google Scholar
Svenonius, Peter
2002 “Icelandic Case and the Structure of Events.” Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 6: 223-245.Google Scholar
Torrego, Esther
2010 “Variability in the Case Patterns of Causative Formation in Romance and Its Implications.” Linguistic Inquiry, 41 (3): 445-470. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Troberg, Michelle Ann
2008 Dynamic Two-place Indirect Verbs in French: a Synchronic and Diachronic Study in Variation and Change of Valence. PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Corr, Alice
2022. Numeral Reduplication and Clausal Syntax: Grammaticalized Distributivity in Medieval Iberia. Probus 34:2 ► pp. 317 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 september 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.