The Dative Alternation (ii) x causes z to go to/be at y (allative) - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

� 1.1 Two Broad Classes of Dative Verbs (i) ‘x causes y to have z’ (possessive) The Dative Alternation (ii) ‘x causes z to go to/be at y’ (allative) and (Green 1974, Oehrle 1976, Pinker 1989, Krifka 2001, Levin and Rappaport Hovav 2002) Real English 1 3 (i) possessive, e.g. give, lend : I think we’ve given our teachers an almost impossible job . (ii) allative, e.g. send, throw : [Linguistics 128/228: Real English: The Syntax of Language Use] And we can send mail messages to each other , which is good enough. [examples from the parsed Switchboard corpus] 1.2 The Monosemy Hypothesis Levin and Rappaport Hovav 2002: a 1 The Dative Alternation Recipients universally can be viewed both as possessors and as animate goals: Repetitions with alternating forms: possessors — expressed by means of a core grammatical function (the primary, or first NP, object in English; dative case marking “You don’t know how difficult it is to find something which will in many other languages) 2 4 please everybody—especially the men.” animate goals — expressed by means of an oblique grammatical “Why not just give them cheques ?’ I asked. function (a to -prepositional object in English; allative or locative “You can’t give cheques to people . It would be insulting.” a case or adpositional marking in many other languages) In English, recipient arguments may be conveyed by either the core or the a Davidse (1996a: 291), from Graham Greene (1980) Doctor Fischer of Geneva or the oblique expression type, without a change of the lexical meaning of the Bomb Party . London: The Bodley Head) verb. a Beth Levin and Malka Rappaport Hovav, 2002, “ What Alternates in the Dative Al- ternation?”, paper presented at RRG2002. On-line, Stanford University: http://www- csli.stanford.edu/ beth/.

✁ ✄ 1.3 Some Allative PPs Are Not Recipients. . . A purely spatial goal Recipient ( PP - DIR in Switchboard): �✂✁ How do you feel about sending an elderly family member Pinker (1989: 103) on verbs of continous imparting of force ( carry, pull, (PP-DIR to a nursing home)? (nonalternating) push, schlep ): An animate goal Recipient ( PP - DTV in Switchboard): Though they are cognitively construable as resulting in a change I was thinking about it after I got off the phone, that I really wish of possession (if the object is pushed over to a person with the 5 7 that there was some way to send a message (PP-DTV to people) intent of giving it to him), they are not linguistically construable about child abuse and things like that. (alternating) as such because the licensing linguistic rule is not stated broadly enough to apply to them. Our evidence shows that they are linguistically construable as changes of . . . Some Possessive NPs Are Not Recipients possession, and are in current use. Levin and Rappaport Hovav 2002: Smith envied Jones his good fortune. *Smith envied his good fortune to Jones. Representatives of the starred types of examples found in current use: Karen spoke with Gretchen about the procedure for registering a complaint, and hand-carried her a form , but Gretchen never completed it. 1.4 Evidence for Polysemy? [2 June 1999, Nampa Controversy Summary - Idaho Library Association] Verbs of ‘Continuous Imparting of Force’: www.idaholibraries.org/nampa.controversy.summary.htm Later in the day I was winding my way up a cove, to see a woman I knew. . . . I carried her a bundle of silver sage, sent to her by another friend, and the bad Pinker (1989: 110–111), Krifka (2001): news that the sweat she had planned had been canceled. www.azstarnet.com/ pattys/cs0998/09 22.txt “verbs of instantaneous imparting of force in some manner 6 8 causing ballistic motion”: As Player A pushed him the chips , all hell broke loose at the table. (www.cardplayer.com/?sec=afeature&art id=165) Lafleur throws/tosses/flips/slaps/kicks/pokes/flings/blasts him the puck; he shoots, he scores! Nothing like heart burn food. “ I have the tums.” Nick joked. He pulled himself a steaming piece of the pie . “ Thanks for being here.” (www.realityfanfi ction.addr.com/storm3.html) “verbs of continuous imparting of force in some manner causing accompanied motion”: Therefore, when he got to purgatory, Buddha lowered him the silver thread of a * I carried/pulled/pushed/schlepped/lifted/lowered/hauled John spider as his last chance for salvation. the box. (www.inch.com/ fujimura/ImofGrmain.htm) “ Well. . . it started like this. . . ” Shinbo explained while Sumomo dragged him a can of beer and opened it for him, “ We were having dinner together and. . . ” (www.angelfi re.com/wa2/bozyby/hold1.html)

1.5 Why Do Some Allative Verbs Alternate More Easily than Others? Grammaticality judgments may be systematically biased by the probability of similar descriptions of the event types depicted by the examples. For the same reasons, pushing is probably less likely to be thought of as To elaborate, transfers of possession may occur in many ways. In sports a mode of transferring possession than carrying, with pulling perhaps less like hockey, possession of the puck can take place by means of a number so, and lowering and dragging the least. of sudden actions in play, and there is much varied discourse about it. 9 11 In the world more generally, or at least in present-day American life, if In sum, linguistic intuitions in judging grammaticality may reflect what is a person accompanies and holds, clings to, or otherwise stays in contact socially entrenched and typical as much as what is linguistically possible. a with a possession, it seems to us less likely that a transfer of possession is going on, and in many cases there is probably much less talk about it than a See also Durie (1997) for a similar observation on serial verb constructions. about possession of the ball or puck or whatever in sports. Carrying people things as a transfer of possession is surely more common in situations where walking is a major mode of transportation. The above examples are from present-day English, but many examples of ‘carry’ with dative NP can be found in depictions of life in rural areas, often predating the rise of the automobile. pre-automotive uses of ditransitive ‘carry’ Aurie and Pearl went to Humboldt that afternoon. I went back to Mrs. Kate’s to carry her some mustard salad . 1.6 Evidence for Polysemy? (www.rootsweb.com/ tngibson/Bios/mayfi eld1894.htm Verbs of ‘Manner of Speaking’: [from Fidelia Mayfi eld Diary 1892]) “This evening she was late starting dinner because her second grand- Pinker (1989), Levin (1993), Krifka (2001), inter alia: daughter has a cold, and she had to carry her some pepper sauce for her cough .” 10 12 “verbs of instrument of communication:” (www.fi ctionwise.com/ebooks/eBook842.htm [from a novel set in the Civil War period]) Susan cabled/emailed/faxed/phoned/telegraphed/... Rachel the news Polly had been sick and Sara wanted to carry her some food . (www.lrwma.com/happenings/HAPPENINGS1.htm “verbs of manner of speaking:” [from Happenings around Leatherwood Mountain in the Early 1900s]) * Susan whispered/yelled/mumbled/barked/muttered... Rachel the news. “Go, my dear, and see how thy grandmamma does, for I hear she has been very ill; carry her a custard and this little pot of butter .” (www.azstarnet.com/reading/reading22.html [Little Red Riding Hood])