Dative: The heterogeneity of the mapping among morphological case, grammatical functions, and thematic roles

Abstract

This paper examines the mappings among morphological case, grammatical functions and thematic roles, focusing on dative as a place where the mapping between the morphosyntax and semantics is often assumed to be particularly regular. Evidence is provided from three Germanic languages, English, German and Icelandic, which shows that the mappings are more heterogeneous than is generally acknolwedged. An investigation of both co-occurrence restrictions and the lexical restrictions on adnominal genitives, middle formation and secondary prediction suggests that the linking of dative case to a verbal argument does not play a role in restricting lexical rules. Accusative goals are shown to behave in most respects just like dative goals, and dative themes just like accusative themes. Since the objects of transitive verbs do not all behave alike, theme cannot be treated as the default theta-role on verbal objects, and lexical rules may need to refer to the content of theta-roles, not just their relative position in a verb's theta-grid.