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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. 56–79

The Middle English prepositional dative

Contact with French

The to-PP form of the dative alternation is argued to have arisen from contact with French rather than being linked to the loss of the Old English Dative case. It is shown to have been extended in ME to the experiencer argument of psych verbs, and to the recipient argument of some verbs of communication, but only to those whose French counterparts took the à-dative, regardless of OE case assignment. Where French equivalents of verbs in these classes did not take an indirect object, the Middle English verb took only a nominal object. Selectivity in to-PP use in ME, going beyond verbs of possession transfer yet showing a verb-specific restriction to source item argument realisation patterns, indicates that French provided a replication source for the to-PP form of the dative alternation.

Keywords: dative, dative alternation, Middle English, argument realisation, verbs, language contact, French, possession transfer
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The spread of the to-PP to dative contexts
  • 3.Explaining the change
  • 4.Contact with (Anglo-)French in later medieval England
  • 5.Design of the study
  • 6.Verb profiles
    • 6.1Psych verbs
    • 6.2Verbs of communication
  • 7.Implications
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Data sources
  • 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.7.02ing
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