| ROA: | 596 |
|---|---|
| Title: | On the Gradience of the Dative Alternation |
| Authors: | Joan Bresnan, Tatiana Nikitina |
| Comment: | |
| Length: | 39 |
| Abstract: | In this study we address the gradience of the dative alternation by presenting new corpus data and an OT model embodying an informational theory of the alternation. We show that some of the central evidential paradigms that have been used to support semantic explanations for the choice of dative syntax are not well founded empirically. Some widely repeated reports of intuitive contrasts in grammaticality appear to rest instead on judgments of pragmatic probabilities. We also show that at least one type of informational structure (specifically the hierarchy of person or speech act participants) exerts an effect on the dative alternation independently of effects of length or weight, semantic role, and pronominality. We propose a unifying model of the person alignment phenomenon within the framework of Optimality Theory with stochastic evaluation (Boersma 1998, Boersma and Hayes 2001), and show how lexical variation can be incorporated into the model. Within the framework of this model, the constraint ranking for English implies that the most frequently ditransitive alternating verbs should be the most driven by informational harmony. Finally, we show that the same pattern of person/argument alignment that appears gradiently in the English dative alternation appears (near-)categorically in other languages, as our model leads us to expect, with data from the Nilo-Saharan language Kanuri. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | Syntax,Semantics |
| Article: | Version 1 |