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Ditransitives in Germanic Languages: Synchronic and diachronic aspects
Edited by Eva Zehentner, Melanie Röthlisberger and Timothy Colleman
[Studies in Germanic Linguistics 7] 2023
► pp. 19–55

The emergence of the English dative alternation as a response to system-wide changes

An Evolutionary Game Theory approach

This chapter revisits the much-discussed question whether a causal relationship holds between several changes observed in the history of English; these are (a) the increasing use of prepositional patterns, (b) the loss of nominal case marking, and (c) the fixation of constituent order. Located within the same time-period, namely Middle English, there is relatively broad consensus that the processes are correlated. However, the extent and directionality of causation is highly debated. This chapter addresses this issue by taking another look at a specific case study which reflects all the changes: the history of the dative alternation. To add to results from earlier corpus-based investigations on this development, the emergence of the alternation is modelled by means of Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT). Specifically, the study tests the hypothesis that the increase of prepositional ditransitives and ultimately the dative alternation is a consequence of case marking being lost and constituent order becoming fixed, and discusses the potential benefits of taking an EGT approach to such questions.

Keywords: dative alternation, Middle English, Evolutionary Game Theory, case marking, constituent order
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Changes in the history of the English dative alternation
    • 2.1Increase of prepositional patterns and the rise of the dative alternation
    • 2.2Loss of case marking
    • 2.3Fixation of constituent order
    • 2.4Correlations and causal effects
  • 3.(Evolutionary) game theory
    • 3.1Introduction to (E)GT
    • 3.2EGT applications to (historical) linguistics: Potential uses
  • 4.An EGT approach to the history of the English dative alternation
    • 4.1Set-up of the model
    • 4.2Input and results of the model
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 8 August 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sigl.7.01zeh
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