Ditransitive construction vs. prepositional dative
Joshua Viau, in a paper Give = CAUSE + HAVE / GO: Evidence for Early Semantic Decomposition of Dative Verbs in English Child Corpora (pdf discusses a difference in verbs the take both the di-transitive construction (I gave her it) and the prepositional indirect object construction ("I give it to her").
Viau takes the two sentences
Ignoring here the metonymic reading of "Chicago" as something akin to "the Chicago Office", Viaou note that the first, with the prepositional construction, is acceptable and the second, with a ditransitive form, is not. This difference is analyzed as the difference between the prepositional form encoding "Kathy CAUSE (a steel drum GOTO Chicago)" while the ditransitive form encodes "Kathy CAUSE (Chicago HAVE a steel drum). Since, according to the analysis, Chicago is not the sort of thing that can HAVE a steel drum, the ditransitive form is disallowed, although it is allowed as a location to which something can be sent.
Viau's primitive HAVE seems to be a stative verb; that is, it encodes something -AT- a -LOC- (using the dashes to distinguish Viau's primitives from those along the line I have discussed before). Viau does seem to argue this, encoding the English verb [BE [x HAVE y]], BE apparently being a primitive which marks states rather than events.
Viau also distinguishes the primitives GO and BECOME, Go apparently encoding movement (perhaps metaphorically), and BECOME appearing to encode some more complex change in state or condition; in the paper BECOME is used in the explication of get as [BECOME [x HAVE y]]. The paper also distinguishes, without much discussion, the prepositional dative as [X CAUSE [y GO z]] from causative verbs [x CAUSE [y BECOME XPstate]].
In the somewhat simpler, or lower level, analysis I set forth earlier, Viau's HAVE is an -AT- verb, encoding that the Theme (what is had) is -AT- (in some sufficiently abstract form) the LOC (the person how has).
But sent in sentences 1 and 2 above encodes a change in -LOC-. The sentences have an implicit prior condition as [NOT [steel drum -AT_ Chicago]] and the final, stated condition of [steel drum -AT- Chicago]. Thus it is an event, and thus must encode a -GOTO-. So the sentences both would, at their base, be [Kathy -CAUSE- [steel drum -GOTO- Chicago].
The primitive CAUSE seems to only accept events, not states. In my analysis *[Agent -CAUSE- [Theme -AT- Loc]] appears not to occur; there is the event -STAY-, which can be CAUSEd, as in [gravity -CAUSE- [book -STAY- table], but the plain -AT- appears not to occur.
Viau's construction [Kathy CAUSE [Chicago HAVE steel drum]] thus does imply a change in state - with BECOME in the analysis of the paper. it seems a more complete explication may be [Kathy CAUSE [BECOME [Chicago HAVE steel drum]]. Since, as it appears that CAUSE can only take events, the event of BECOMEing is implicit, but seems to be present.
My analysis is at a lower level that that of the paper, and Viau's HAVE would, in my analysis, a state, a Loc, of having, which would have the semantic and pragmatic restrictions on what sort of things can have other sorts of things. Thus, in the most abstract form, sent would be analysed as [x -CAUSE- [y -GOTO- y]]. The ditransitive form, which Viau argues requires that the resultant condition include [z HAVE y], would encode more explictly the resultant form of [y -AT- z], with the semantic and pragmatic considerations that lead Viau to conclude that Chicago cannot be interpreted as a possessor of a book (or steel drum) being separate form the underlying highly abstract structure of the verb.
Viau takes the two sentences
| 1 | Kathy sent a steel drum to Chicago | 2 | *Kathy sent Chicago a steel Drum |
Ignoring here the metonymic reading of "Chicago" as something akin to "the Chicago Office", Viaou note that the first, with the prepositional construction, is acceptable and the second, with a ditransitive form, is not. This difference is analyzed as the difference between the prepositional form encoding "Kathy CAUSE (a steel drum GOTO Chicago)" while the ditransitive form encodes "Kathy CAUSE (Chicago HAVE a steel drum). Since, according to the analysis, Chicago is not the sort of thing that can HAVE a steel drum, the ditransitive form is disallowed, although it is allowed as a location to which something can be sent.
Viau's primitive HAVE seems to be a stative verb; that is, it encodes something -AT- a -LOC- (using the dashes to distinguish Viau's primitives from those along the line I have discussed before). Viau does seem to argue this, encoding the English verb [BE [x HAVE y]], BE apparently being a primitive which marks states rather than events.
Viau also distinguishes the primitives GO and BECOME, Go apparently encoding movement (perhaps metaphorically), and BECOME appearing to encode some more complex change in state or condition; in the paper BECOME is used in the explication of get as [BECOME [x HAVE y]]. The paper also distinguishes, without much discussion, the prepositional dative as [X CAUSE [y GO z]] from causative verbs [x CAUSE [y BECOME XPstate]].
In the somewhat simpler, or lower level, analysis I set forth earlier, Viau's HAVE is an -AT- verb, encoding that the Theme (what is had) is -AT- (in some sufficiently abstract form) the LOC (the person how has).
But sent in sentences 1 and 2 above encodes a change in -LOC-. The sentences have an implicit prior condition as [NOT [steel drum -AT_ Chicago]] and the final, stated condition of [steel drum -AT- Chicago]. Thus it is an event, and thus must encode a -GOTO-. So the sentences both would, at their base, be [Kathy -CAUSE- [steel drum -GOTO- Chicago].
The primitive CAUSE seems to only accept events, not states. In my analysis *[Agent -CAUSE- [Theme -AT- Loc]] appears not to occur; there is the event -STAY-, which can be CAUSEd, as in [gravity -CAUSE- [book -STAY- table], but the plain -AT- appears not to occur.
Viau's construction [Kathy CAUSE [Chicago HAVE steel drum]] thus does imply a change in state - with BECOME in the analysis of the paper. it seems a more complete explication may be [Kathy CAUSE [BECOME [Chicago HAVE steel drum]]. Since, as it appears that CAUSE can only take events, the event of BECOMEing is implicit, but seems to be present.
My analysis is at a lower level that that of the paper, and Viau's HAVE would, in my analysis, a state, a Loc, of having, which would have the semantic and pragmatic restrictions on what sort of things can have other sorts of things. Thus, in the most abstract form, sent would be analysed as [x -CAUSE- [y -GOTO- y]]. The ditransitive form, which Viau argues requires that the resultant condition include [z HAVE y], would encode more explictly the resultant form of [y -AT- z], with the semantic and pragmatic considerations that lead Viau to conclude that Chicago cannot be interpreted as a possessor of a book (or steel drum) being separate form the underlying highly abstract structure of the verb.
Labels: grammar
posted by decaf owl at 1:43 PM
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