Dative alternation in Indian English: a corpus-based study

The dative alternation refers to the alternation between two constructions that denote some type of transfer: the double object construction (I give my sister a book) vs. the to-dative construction (I give a book to my sister). We examined the motivations behind the dative alternation in Indian English. A corpus study was performed based on a sample of N = 943 sentences that were drawn from the Kolhapur corpus. Using a mixed-effects logistic regression analysis, we evaluated the effect of 14 predictors that are known to influence the dative alternation in other macro-regional varieties of English. Three predictors were found to be significant: the verb (modeled as a random intercept), the pronominality of the Recipient and the difference in length between the Recipient and the Theme. Our results further corroborate earlier findings that the to-dative construction is more frequently used in Indian English than in other varieties. We argue that the latter tendency may be associated with a transfer from Hindi

Between the historical languages and the reconstructed language : an alternative approach to the Gerundive + “Dative of Agent” construction in Indo-European

It is argued by Hettrich (1990) that the “dative of agent” construction in the Indo-European languages most likely continues a construction inherited from Proto-Indo-European. In two recent proposals (Danesi 2013, Luraghi 2016), it is argued that the “dative of agent” contains no agent at all, although the two proposals differ with regard to the reconstructability of the “dative of agent” construction. Luraghi argues that it is an independent secondary development from an original beneficiary function (cf. Hettrich 1990), while Danesi maintains that the construction is reconstructable for an earlier proto-stage. Elaborating on Danesi’s approach, we analyze gerundives with the “dative of agent” in six different Indo-European languages that bridge the east–west divide, namely, Sanskrit, Avestan, Ancient Greek, Latin, Tocharian, and Lithuanian. Scrutiny of the data reveals similarities at a morphosyntactic level, a semantic level (i.e. modal meaning and low degree of transitivity), and also, to some extent, at an etymological level. An analysis involving a modal reading of the predicate, with a dative subject and a nominative object, is better equipped to account for the particulars of the “gerundive + nominative + dative” construction than the traditional agentive/passive analysis. The proposal is couched within the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, in which the basic unit of language is the Construction, i.e. a form–function correspondence, and no principled distinction between lexical items and complex syntactic structures is assumed. As these structures are by definition units of comparanda, required by the Comparative Method, they can be successfully utilized in the reconstruction of a proto-construction for Proto-Indo-European

On the analysis of non-selected datives in Maltese

This paper provides a descriptive overview of extra-argumental or non-selected datives in Maltese, poorly described in existing grammars. We outline an LFG approach to the facts we describe building on existing LFG work and in particular on Kibort (2008)?s approach to dative arguments, extending her approach to the various subclasses of non-selected dative arguments

External versus internal possessor structures and inalienability in Russian

This study deals with the choice between two external possessor structures in Russian: the possessive dative and the U + genitive PP. Is shows that this choice is primarily related to the thematic role of the possessor adjunct, which can vary with the same verb: the possessive dative presents it as a goal or as an experiencer, while the U-construction views it as a source or a location. Two general conclusions can be drawn from this study: - Russian views the possessive relation through its relationship with space. - Russian external possessor structures reflect two different delimitations of inalienable possession, one restricted to animate referents for the dative and one extended to a wide range of possessive relations including inanimate referents for the U-construction

Bodily injuries and dative experiencers in Old Frisian

This article offers a descriptive account of body part constructions in Old East Frisian texts and analyzes the occurrence of dative experiencers in such clauses. This includes a comparison between Old Frisian body part grammar and its Middle Dutch counterpart, revisiting issues such as the antiquity of dative external possessors and oblique subject constructions in West Germanic. In presenting the data from a theory-neutral perspective, this investigation contributes to the study of body part grammar in Medieval Germanic in particular and to the growing body of literature on Old Frisian syntax in general

The acquisition of the English dative alternation by Russian foreign language learners

Ditransitive verbs include a “recipient” and a “theme” argument (in addition to the subject). The choice of putting one argument before the other (i.e., either recipient-theme, or theme-recipient) is associated with multiple discourse-pragmatic factors. Language have different options to code the ditransitive construction. In English, a ditransitive verb can take two alternating patterns (“the dative alternation”): the Double Object Construction (DOC) (John gives Mary a book) and the to-dative construction (to-dative) (John gives a book to Mary). In Russian, theme and recipient are marked by accusative and dative, respectively. In addition, word order is flexible and either the accusative-marked theme (Pjotr dal knigu Marii), or the dative-marked recipient (Pjotr dal Marii knigu) can come first. This article reports on two sentence rating experiments (acceptability judgments) to test whether Russian learners of English transfer their preferences about the theme-recipient order in Russian to the ditransitive construction in English. A total of 284 Russian students were tested. Results for both tests showed a great variability in the ratings. A comparison of the ratings seems to suggest a small positive correlation, but no statistically significant relation was found between the order preferences in both languages. However, we found a small preference for the use of the to-dative, which we relate to the language acquisition process as proposed by Processability Theory

Thematic Constraints on the Dative Alternation in English

1. Some Constraints on the Dative Alternations In English some verbs allow the so-called dative alternation in which both the prepositional dative construction (the DP-PP frame) and the double object construction (the DP frame) are acceptable. ..

Dative by genitive replacement in the Greek language of the papyri: a diachronic account of case semantics

Semantic analysis of the prenominal first person singular genitive pronoun (μου) in the Greek of the documentary papyri shows that the pronoun is typically found in the position between a verbal form and an alienable possessum which functions as the patient of the predicate. When the event expressed by the predicate is patient-affecting, the possessor is indirectly also affected. Hence the semantic role of this affected alienable possessor might be interpreted as a benefactive or malefactive in genitive possession constructions. By semantic extension the meaning of the genitive case in this position is extended into goal-oriented roles, such as addressee and recipient, which are commonly denoted by the dative case in Ancient Greek. The semantic similarity of the genitive and dative cases in these constructions might have provided the basis for the merger of the cases in the Greek language

German particle verbs and pleonastic prepositions

This paper discusses the behaviour of German particle verbs formed by two-way prepositions in combination with pleonastic PPs including the verb particle as a preposition. These particle verbs have a characteristic feature: some of them license directional prepositional phrases in the accusative, some only allow for locative PPs in the dative, and some particle verbs can occur with PPs in the accusative and in the dative. Directional particle verbs together with directional PPs present an additional problem: the particle and the preposition in the PP seem to provide redundant information. The paper gives an overview of the semantic verb classes inuencing this phenomenon, based on corpus data, and explains the underlying reasons for the behaviour of the particle verbs. We also show how the restrictions on particle verbs and pleonastic PPs can be expressed in a grammar theory like Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG)

Polish children's productivity with case marking: the role of regularity, type frequency, and phonological diversity

Polish-speaking children aged from 2;4, to 4;8 and 16 adult controls participated in a nonce-word inflection experiment testing their ability to use the genitive, dative and accusative inflections productively. Results show that this ability develops early: the majority of two-year-olds were already productive with all inflections apart from dative neuter; and the overall performance of the four-year-olds was very similar to that of adults. All age groups were more productive with inflections that apply to large and/or phonologically diverse classes, although class size and token frequency appeared to be more important for younger children (two- and three-year-olds) and phonological diversity for older children and adults. Regularity, on the other hand, was a very poor predictor of productivity. The results support usage-based models of language acquisition and are problematic for the dual mechanism model