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.
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
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References