Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Organization
- BTK Department of English Linguistics
- Code
- BBI-ANG17-342E.06
- Title
- Elective seminar in Linguistics: Ditransitive Structures
- Usual semester
- Spring
- ECTS
- 5
- Language
- Learning outcomes
- This specialisation seminar discusses the syntax of ditransitive constructions (dative as well as locative). The seminar sorts through the primary literature, distilling the quintessential syntactic properties of ditransitives, the alternations they partake in, and the structure(s) that underlie(s) them. Against this background, the seminar instills in its participants a robust sense of the theoretical significance of ditransitives and the major questions that they raise.
- Course content
- Ditransitive constructions feature a verb and three arguments — an Agent, a Theme, and a Goal or Location. In English and several other languages, dative ditransitives productively alternate between two different patterns: the V–NP–PP pattern, with the Theme as the postverbal NP (give the book to Mary), and the V–NP–NP pattern, with the Goal as the postverbal NP (give Mary the book); for some dative ditransitives, there is even a three-way alternation, including a V–NP–PP pattern in which the Goal is the NP to the immediate right of the verb (present Mary with the book). Locative ditransitives in English either show no alternation at all (put the book on the table ~ *put the table the book / *put the table with the book) or limit the alternation to the two versions of the V–NP–PP pattern (load the hay onto the truck ~ load the truck with hay); the Bantu languages show a productive ‘applicative alternation’ between the V–NPTh–PPLoc and V–NPLoc–NPTh patterns but have no third option. Ditransitive constructions raise major questions regarding syntax and the lexicon–syntax interface. Reviewing some of the main contributions to the debate, this seminar finds its way through the ditransitive maze and towards an exit that provides satisfactory answers to these major questions.
- Assessment method
- Active participation in the discussion in class, and writing a conference-style two-page abstract at the end of the semester.
- Bibliography
- Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dikken, Marcel den. 1995. Particles. On the syntax of verb–particle, triadic, and causative constructions. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Hale, Kenneth & S. Jay Keyser. 1993. On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In Kenneth Hale & S. Jay Keyser (eds), The view from Building 20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 53–104. Hoekstra, Teun. 1988. Small clause results. Lingua 74. 101–39. Larson, Richard. 1988. On the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry 19. 335–91.