Talk:Dative shift
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Contents
Grammar[edit]
Benefactive Constructions[edit]
Dative Shift also applies to many benefactive constructions (arguments introduced by for). This is illustrated in the following examples:
A) a. Kate baked a cake for her sister.
b. Kate baked her sister a cake.
B) a. Alice knitted a pair of socks for Uncle John.
b. Alice knitted Uncle John a pair of socks.
However, in other very similar cases, the Dative Shift rule does not apply. For example:
A. a. Mary drove the car for her mother
b. *Mary drove her mother the car.
B. a. Aladdin polished the lamp for his wife.
b. *Aladdin polished his wife the lamp.
The failure of the Dative Shift rule application can be explained here by observing that Dative Shift only works on beneficiary arguments when they can be interpreted as receiving or acquiring possession of the patient or theme. [1]
Katedumbrell (talk) 01:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC) Kate Dumbrell
Rheanne-
Dative shift shifts a verb out of dative form. Shifting a double-object construction (dative form) to a prepositional construction (dative shifted form)
- The verb has a valency of 3 in dative form, and a valency of only 2 in the shifted.
A. a. [John] gave [Mary] [a present]
b. [John] gave [a present] [to Mary]
In (b), the non-dative shifted version, "gave" acts as a transitive verb, where the prepositional phrase "to Mary" is an adjunct, and therefore not an argument. Being dative shifted, the "give" in example (a) is now a ditransitive verb, requiring both the arguments "Mary" and "a present". This is the difference between the active, and passive "gave".
B. a. [John] gave [a present].
b. *[John] gave [Mary].
Rheanneb (talk) 02:22, 21 October 2013 (UTC) Rheanne Brownridge
Traditional Grammar[edit]
Traditional grammar suggests (as a “rule of thumb”) that only single syllable verbs can be in dative form. These verbs also must allow a recipient.
| Verb | Dative form | Shifted form | Single Object |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bought | [John] bought [Mary] [a cake] | [John] bought [a cake] [for Mary] | [John] bought [a cake]/ *[John] bought [Mary] |
| Acquired | *[John] acquired [Mary] [a new car] | [John] acquired [a new car] [for Mary] | [John] acquired [a new car] /*[John] acquired [Mary] |
| Ran | *[John] ran [Mary] [the race] | *[John] ran [the race][to Mary] | [John] ran [the race] |
The last example demonstrates a single syllable verb that does not allow the dative form because it cannot take a recipient.
The reason for this lies with the origin of the verbs that allow dative form. Only Anglo-Saxon verbs (which are traditionally single syllable) allow dative form, whereas Latin verbs are (traditionally multisyllabic) do not allow the dative form).
| Examples of verb that allow dative form | Examples of verbs that do not allow dative form |
|---|---|
| Tell me your idea | *Expose them your answer |
| Toss me the ball | *Recount me a story |
| Make me a sandwich | *Donate her the money |
| Send me a letter | ?Purchase her a birthday cake |
| Mail me a letter | ?Explain me the solution |
Larson's Account of Dative Shift[edit]
Larson's theory takes the idea of asymmetry from Barss and Lasnik (1986) to derive a syntactic theory on dative shift.
Barss and Lasnik (1986) - Point out asymmetries in the behaviour of two objects in double object construction. Points out that anaphors must be c-commanded by their antecedents and therefore double object structures show an asymmetry with respect to the licensing of anaphors.
Larson proposes that both the oblique dative form and the double object construction form are surface representations.
First, Larson proposes (from Chomsky's 1955; 1975) that dative complement constructions John sent a letter to Mary involve an underlying form in which the verb and its indirect object make up a constituent that excludes the direct object. The assumption is that the correct surface form for the double object construction arises by movement of the verb to the empty V position. - Underlying Verb Phrase: a letter send to Mary - V-raising - Double Object Construction: send a letter to Mary
Larson, next proposes to construe the dative double object relation transformationally. Unlike the dative complement construction, this had not yet been attempted before. Larson's challenge is to bring this derivation within the scope of established theoretical principles and to constrain it in appropriate. He describes the formation of double object construction as similar, transformationally, to the passive. Larson proposes that dative complement constructions John sent a letter to Mary involve an underlying form in which the verb and its indirect object make up a constituent that excludes the direct object.
Mallorytonner (talk) 02:42, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Child Acquisition[edit]
Findings have shown that by the age of three, children demonstrate an understanding of the dative shift alternation once presented with both forms using novel verbs. Children are particularly likely to alternate the dative form into the shifted form.
i.e.: Children presented with "You pilked Petey the cup" (dative form, or DOC) and "You gorped the keys to Toby" (shifted form)were much more likely to then state "I pilked the cup to Petey" (shifting out of DOC) than "I gorped Toby the keys" (forming a dative construction).
Rheanneb (talk) 04:07, 22 October 2013 (UTC)Rheanne
Real World Application[edit]
Larissa-
(Syntactic Iconicity and Linguistic Freezes: The Human Dimension)Larissafeng (talk) 07:34, 21 October 2013 (UTC) Dative shift -> two possible orderings of “three-argument clauses” - There are semantic constraints on variation - Iconicity hypothesis?
(Analyzing Grammar: An Introduction) by Paul R. Kroeger (pg 61) Dative Shift can show the problem with the way the term “indirect object” is used in traditional grammar; using the examples below, we can see that the grammatical relation of Mary in the first sentence is not the same as in the second:
a) John gave Mary his old radio b) John gave his old radio to Mary
In both, “Mary’ is an indirect object; however, they have different grammatical properties.
References[edit]
- ^ Kroeger, Paul.A Lexical-functional approach.. Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 73.
- ^ Carnie, Andrew. "Syntax, A Generative Introduction".Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, p330-4.
- ^ Conwell, Erin (2007). "Early Syntactic productivity: Evidence from dative shift". Elsevier. 103 (2): 163–179. Unknown parameter
|month=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Kroeger, Paul R. (2004). Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-functional approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 521 01654 1.
- ^ Machonis, Peter A. (1985). "Transformations of Verb Phrase Idioms: Passivization, Particle Movement, Dative Shift". American Speech. 60 (4): 291–308. Unknown parameter
|month=ignored (help) - ^ Kayne, Richard (2005). Movement and Silence. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517916-1.
- ^ Ramsay, Allan (1990). The Logical Structure of English: computing semantic content. Long Acre,London: Pitman Publishing.
- ^ Emonds, Joseph E. (1985). A unified theory of categories. 3300 AM Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris Publications Holland.
- ^ Moravick, Edith A. (2006). An Introduction to Syntax: fundamentals of syntactic analysis. New York, NY: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. ISBN 082648946X.
- ^ Ross, John Robert (1986). Infinite Syntax. New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation. p. 42. ISBN 0-89391-042-2.
- ^ Givón, T. (2001). Syntax. Philadelphia, US: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
- ^ Jones, Mari (2011). Studies in Generative Grammar: Organizing Grammar: Linguistics Studies in Honor of Henk Riemsdijk. Hawthorne, NY. p. 684-688.
- ^ Thompson, Sandra A. (1995). "The iconicity of “dative shift” in English: Considerations from information flow in discourse." Syntactic iconicity and linguistic freezes: the human dimension; 9.
Underlinked tag[edit]
This page was tagged in Nov of 2013 as not having enough links into other articles. To help with that, I've added a Valency and transitivity sidebar and category. Both are in the works right now, but soon they'll have lots of links. Hopefully that helps a little. Joeystanley (talk) 16:28, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Named references.[edit]
Hi there. I noticed this page had a really long list of references, but most of them were the same (one was cited 20 times, another 10 times). I've switched them all to named references, and used the {{rp}} syntax for page numbers. It looks a lot better now. Anyway, just thought I'd let you know. Joeystanley (talk) 16:56, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
"Explain me the solution"[edit]
This is flagged with a question mark in the article, but sounds decidedly wrong to me (BrE speaker): I can only imagine it possibly occurring in World Englishes. Should it be asterisked instead? 86.179.247.69 (talk) 17:58, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
Error in spacing -- possible wikitext bug??[edit]
"The movement leaves a trace at the original V and creates a sequence of coindexed V positions". In my browser (latest Chrome release), the word pairs "traceat" and "coindexedV" are run together with no space, yet there is a space in the wikitext. What's going on? Equinox (talk) 23:03, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
Scope[edit]
Would be nice to get some info about other languages. I came here wondering how this works in Ergative-Absolutive languages, but unfortunately the page is just about English. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 09:41, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
