SOUTHERN AMERICAN ENGLISH PERSONAL DATIVES: THE THEORETICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF DIALECTAL VARIATION

Abstract

The Southern Double Object Construction, a regular form in Southern vernacular varieties of American English, is well attested. Among speakers of Southern Vernacular English, its use is not stigmatized, and it appears that it can be exchanged variably with its mainstream English approximate, the “self” reflexive (e.g., Sheiwent to the store to get herisome candy vs. Sheiwent to the store to get herselfisome candy). In this article, we contextualize the Southern Double Object Construction within the scope of syntactic literature on double object constructions. We contend that although syntactic theories, such as the Principles and Parameters model, can explain Southern Double Object Constructions in general terms, they overlook idiosyncratic, language-specific properties that we argue, like Fillmore, Kay, and O'Connor (1988), constitute theoretically important information essential to evaluation of a grammar.