Cuervo (2003): Datives at Large #

This file formalizes the central claim of [Cue03]: dative arguments have structural meanings. A dative is licensed by an applicative head, and what it means is read off where that head merges in the event structure, the chain of [Cue03]'s flavors of v (Minimalist.LittleV); the site is Minimalist.ApplSite. Table (28) distinguishes three positions. Below every verbal head, the applicative takes the theme DP as its complement and relates the dative to an individual, as a recipient, a source or a possessor according to the verb and to pragmatics: the low applicative, the double object construction of Chapter 2. Between two heads, it takes the lower vP, a result state, as its complement and is itself the complement of the dynamic head above, so the dative participates in two events, external to the state and internal to the change or activity: the affected applicative of Chapter 3, the addition to Pylkkänen's typology. Above every head, it takes the whole vP and relates the dative to the event: the high applicative of Chapter 4, an experiencer over a state or a change and a benefactive or malefactive, the ethical dative, over an activity. Every cell of table (40) is a value of meaning.

Three restrictions turn the geometry into predictions. A low applicative needs the theme as the complement of the root, which it is in a simple structure whose root licenses an object, but not in a complex one, where the theme is the specifier of the lower vP, nor in a predicational state; so the double object construction is structurally incompatible with causatives and inchoatives (§3.1, §3.2.3), and Baker's gap, the absence of the construction with unaccusatives, reduces to simple verbs of change, with which Spanish has it (A Gabi le llegaron dos cartas). English lacks the affected applicative and every high one, and has the low applicative TO under activities alone, which is why its causatives, inchoatives and unaccusatives take no dative at all. A high applicative requires an animate dative, so an inanimate dative with an inchoative is affected and nothing else, while an animate one is ambiguous between the affected reading and the unintentional-responsibility reading of a high applicative over vGO (§4.2.3). And the Spanish high applicative over an activity is defective: it is spelled out by a clitic and projects no specifier, so an unergative takes a dative clitic and no dative DP (§4.3.2).

Main definitions #

Meaning, meaning: table (40), the meaning of a dative at a Minimalist.ApplSite.
Predicate, Predicate.ThemeIsRootComplement: a verb's use with its event structure.
Inventory, spanish, english, Inventory.Licenses, meanings: which datives a language's applicative heads license and what they mean.

Main results #

not_licenses_low_of_biEventive, english_not_licenses_of_biEventive, english_not_licenses_change: no double object construction with a complex structure; no dative at all in English causatives, inchoatives and simple verbs of change.
unergative_clitic_only: the only dative of a Spanish unergative is an animate ethical clitic.
inchoative_meanings: an animate dative with an inchoative is affected or experiencer, an inanimate one affected alone.
rows: every example's acceptability and reported meaning are as meanings predicts.

Implementation notes #

The merge site of the applicative and the three types of table (28) are the substrate's Minimalist.ApplSite, a cut of the little-v chain; the empty affected-under-state cell of table (40) is its ApplSite.not_affected_of_state. Dative case, clitic doubling and the movement of the dative to the subject position of unaccusatives (§2.0.5, §3.2.2.1) are not represented, nor are the sub-types of low applicative beyond the relation read, the resultatives and particles of §3.3, or the defective applicatives of other languages. The low relation is the verb's, as the paper takes it to be fixed by the verb's meaning and by pragmatics. Italian is left out, since the paper attests its double object construction with arrivare alone.

Cuervo (2003): Datives at Large #

Main definitions #

Main results #

Implementation notes #

References #

Meanings (table (40)) #

Predicates #

Inventories of applicative heads #

The double object construction and Baker's gap (§3.1, §3.2.3) #

The ethical dative (§4.3) #

Datives with inchoatives (§4.2.3) #

The rows #