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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. 150–194

Indexicality across the boundaries of syntax, semantics and pragmatics

The constructional content of the Danish free indirect object

In Danish, indirect object (IO) constructions fall into two main classes: (1) the three-argument valence-governed pattern and (2) the free indirect object construction. The free IO is a constructional extension to certain types of monotransitive constructions and verbs; by contrast, the valence-governed IO is a manifestation of the third argument of three-place verb stems in (prototypically) transfer constructions. The free indirect object (free IO) in Modern Danish presents an intricate problem, calling for concepts and solutions not normally connected with constructional syntax. Its frequency is extremely low, and intuitions about its acceptability vary according to basic speech act type. In assertive contexts, it comes across as old-fashioned and is hardly productive; in regulative contexts, by contrast, it retains full productivity. The few positive results yielded by a corpus search are almost exclusively examples of free IOs in regulative contexts.

Indexicality, as used especially in morphology by Henning Andersen and Raimo Anttila, is the key concept of our analysis. An IO np must identify its argument by pointing indexically to some aspect of the predicate’s semantics, but since – in the case of free IOs – there is no third argument A3 in the verb’s valence schema, there is apparently nothing for the free IO to index. In special cases, however, most importantly in regulative contexts, the free IO finds an alternative indicatum by pointing to features of the performative situation. Our findings indicate the need for a grammatical theory that allows syntactic rules to be not only semantically, but also pragmatically sensitive.

Keywords: indirect object constructions, constructional meaning, free indirect object, indexical meaning, valence, speech acts, reflexive morpheme, regulative speech acts, symbolic meaning
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The structure of IO constructions
    • 2.1The three-argument transfer construction
    • 2.2The free IO construction: A categorial constructional extension, not a valence role
    • 2.3The passive alternation
    • 2.4Restrictions on the Danish free IO np
    • 2.5Symbolic and indexical relations in the analysis of IO constructions
      • 2.5.1Case forms as indexes in lexical IO constructions
      • 2.5.2Topological positions as indexes in IO constructions
      • 2.5.3The symbolic structure of the free prepositional IO
      • 2.5.4Symbolic free IO np s of the older language
  • 3.Free indirect objects in a corpus of spoken Danish
    • 3.1The LANCHART corpus
    • 3.2Study design
    • 3.3Results
      • 3.3.1The constructional query
      • 3.3.2The lexical query
      • 3.3.3The free IOs from the LANCHART corpus
  • 4.The indexical paradox – how the Danish language (users) solve it
    • 4.1Reflexive constructions
    • 4.2Two lexical solutions: The verbs skaffe and skrive
    • 4.3A pragmatic solution: Speech act types presupposing a transfer relation
    • 4.4A reanalysis limited to usage
    • 4.5Why it is not all symbolic
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Methodological reflection on the data used
    • 5.2Indexical IO meaning and its wider theoretical significance
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 8 August 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sigl.7.05nie
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