Ditransitive Sentences Research Articles

On the syntax of ditransitive sentences in Slovenian

In this paper we discuss Slovenian ditransitive sentences with respect to the two possible word orders of the objects found with neutral intonation, DAT≫ACC and ACC≫DAT. We follow the idea in the Gracanin-Yuksek (2006) paper on Croatian that these two word orders instantiate different structures. In Slovenian, the DAT≫ACC order has an applicative structure (either high or low), while the ACC≫DAT is a prepositional dative construction. The applicative analysis provides a novel argument for this type of analysis. Other supporting arguments examined are scope properties, binding of possessives, the possibility of the causative reading, non-contrastive focus and heavy NP shift, and properties of idioms.

Left inferior frontal activations depending on the canonicity determined by the argument structures of ditransitive sentences: an MEG study.

To elucidate the relationships between syntactic and semantic processes, one interesting question is how syntactic structures are constructed by the argument structure of a verb, where each argument corresponds to a semantic role of each noun phrase (NP). Here we examined the effects of possessivity [sentences with or without a possessor] and canonicity [canonical or noncanonical word orders] using Japanese ditransitive sentences. During a syntactic decision task, the syntactic structure of each sentence would be constructed in an incremental manner based on the predicted argument structure of the ditransitive verb in a verb-final construction. Using magnetoencephalography, we found a significant canonicity effect on the current density in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) at 530–550 ms after the verb onset. This effect was selective to canonical sentences, and significant even when the precedent NP was physically identical. We suggest that the predictive effects associated with syntactic processing became larger for canonical sentences, where the NPs and verb were merged with a minimum structural distance, leading to the left IFG activations. For monotransitive and intransitive verbs, in which structural computation of the sentences was simpler than that of ditransitive sentences, we observed a significant effect selective to noncanonical sentences in the temporoparietal regions during 480–670 ms. This effect probably reflects difficulty in semantic processing of noncanonical sentences. These results demonstrate that the left IFG plays a predictive role in syntactic processing, which depends on the canonicity determined by argument structures, whereas other temporoparietal regions would subserve more semantic aspects of sentence processing.

Left Inferior Frontal Activations Differentially Modulated by Scrambling in Ditransitive Sentences

In order to clarify the relationship among grammatical knowledge, processing components, and neural substrates in sentence comprehension, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how brain activation is affected by two types of scrambling (short scrambling and middle scrambling) in ditransitive sentences in Japanese. Short scrambling and middle scrambling enhanced activation in the anterior and posterior left inferior frontal gyrus respectively. This finding accords with the view that the anterior left inferior frontal gyrus is involved in the automatic processing that establishes a dependency relation between a verb and its arguments, and the posterior left inferior frontal gyrus supports this kind of processing through its role in verbal working memory. This result is more congruent with a process-based approach to neural bases for sentence processing, which searches for neurological correlates of psycholinguistically defined processing components, than with a grammar-based approach, which probes neural networks with the assumption that major grammatical operations are neurologically individuated.

Against ditransitivity

The notion of ditransitivity is explored at the lexical, syntactic and surface levels. By focusing on several types of ditransitive sentences in Spanish it is revealed that there is a triple dissociation between these levels. First, it is shown that the availability of a ditransitive structure (syntactic level) for a certain verb does not depend on the verb being ditransitive (lexical level). Second, causative structures with dative arguments are shown to be ditransitive at the surface level, but not to have an underlying ditransitive structure. Finally, cases of unaccusative sentences with dative arguments are analysed as instances of ditransitive structures without lexical or surface ditransitivity. The paper argues that ditransitivity is at best a pre-theoretical, descriptive notion, and that ditransitive verbs in fact belong to Levin's (Papers from The Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 35: 223–247, 1999) non-core transitives: ditransitives are just transitives compatible with taking a relation between two individuals as complement. This analysis accounts for the intralinguistic and crosslinguistic variation in the expression of the relation, both in terms of type (two DPs related by a transitive preposition or an applicative head) and number of objects realized or omitted. Although the idea that there is no syntactic ditransitivity – that is, that no single verbal head can take two complements – has been implicit in most generative work of the last two decades, it has not been directly explored. This investigation leads to the conclusion that a syntactic property, binary branching, is at the basis of the impossibility of syntactic and lexical ditransitivity. Thus, this result suggests that syntax restricts not only possible structures but possible lexical meanings as well.

Animacy and child grammar: An OT account

In this paper we report the results of an elicited imitation task on dative case marking in non-canonical double object constructions with 22 German children (3;9–6;8). The aim was to test the proficiency of the children's grammar and to see which strategies they use to produce ditransitive sentences in which the direct object precedes the indirect object. The analysis of the children's utterances/imitations shows that the animacy of the direct object affects the overt dative case marking of the indirect object. Children made more errors repeating dative case marking when the direct object was inanimate, i.e., they produced the accusative case on the indirect object (non-adult-like). When both objects were animate, children correctly produced the dative case on the indirect object. We describe and account for these performance strategies of the children in the framework of Optimality Theory. Assuming that the same universal constraints are at work as in the adult grammar, the difference between adults and children lies in the constraint ranking. We focus on a prominent pattern found in children's performance, which is absent (or rather oppressed) in the corresponding adult performance, and show that one and the same grammar accounts for both (in the sense of “strong continuity”).

An applicative analysis of double object constructions in Romanian

Romanian participates in the so-called dative alternation, offering four syntactic types of ditransitive sentences. On the one hand, it exhibits two types of double object constructions (DOCs) corresponding to English Jane sends Bill a letter . In one of them, the goal corresponding to Bill is a morphological dative, and in the other it follows the preposition la . On the other hand, Romanian also exhibits two types of prepositional ditransitive constructions (PDCs) corresponding to English Jane sends a letter to Bill , with a goal that can be a morphological dative or follow the preposition la . Such Romanian ditransitive sentences correspond to DOCs when they contain a dative clitic, and to PDCs when they contain a goal and show no dative clitic. It is proposed that Romanian DOCs and PDCs have different syntactic structures. DOCs contain a low Applicative Phrase with the dative clitic as head, the goal as specifier, and the theme as complement. Thus, in DOCs the goal c-commands the theme. By contrast, in PDCs the theme is the specifier of a PP that c-commands the goal as the complement of P. Due to these different hierarchical structures, DOCs and PDCs contrast in behavior concerning binding, frozen scope, and weak crossover relations between goal and theme.

Priming ditransitive structures in comprehension

Many studies have shown evidence for syntactic priming during language production (e.g., Bock, 1986). It is often assumed that comprehension and production share similar mechanisms and that priming also occurs during comprehension (e.g., Pickering & Garrod, 2004). Research investigating priming during comprehension (e.g., Branigan, Pickering, & McLean, 2005; Scheepers & Crocker, 2004) has mainly focused on syntactic ambiguities that are very different from the meaning-equivalent structures used in production research. In two experiments, we investigated whether priming during comprehension occurs in ditransitive sentences similar to those used in production research. When the verb was repeated between prime and target, we observed a priming effect similar to that in production. However, we observed no evidence for priming when the verbs were different. Thus, priming during comprehension occurs for very similar structures as priming during production, but in contrast to production, the priming effect is completely lexically dependent.

The Pragmatics of Case Marking in Saisiyat

Saisiyat, an Austronesian language spoken in northwest Taiwan, has an elaborate case marking system for nominals and pronominals, but the nominative case is often zero marked. Based on natural spoken data, we demonstrate that this absence of nominative case markers is closely tied to the ongoing word order shift from a V-initial language to a strongly subject-initial language, especially in Agent-Focus sentences, rendering any marking for the nominative case pragmatically redundant. Nominative case marking remains a pragmatic option for the presentative construction to introduce a new referent into discourse. A second issue addressed concerns the coding of the Recipient in a ditransitive sentence. We present an unusual case of biaccusative constructions where the semantic role of the Recipient is marked by either the dative or the accusative case marker, the choice being pragmatically determined by the spatial or psychological distance between the Agent and the Recipient. If the Recipient is perceived as being within the spatial or psychological sphere of influence of the Agent and consequently likely to be affected by the action of the Agent, the accusative case is preferred; elsewhere the dative is used. The effect of this is to produce biaccusative constructions, because the Theme in ditransitive sentences is always coded by the accusative case. Case marking in Saisiyat therefore cannot be dissociated from the discourse-pragmatics of language use and an understanding of the nature of the word order change the language is currently undergoing.

The omission of subject arguments in children with Specific Language Impairment

Ten children with specific language impairment (SLI) were compared to two groups of normally developing children for the production of grammatical subjects in sentences of varying length and argument structure complexity. The normal controls consisted of a group of younger children matched for mean length of utterance (MLU) and a group matched for chronological age. The participants were asked to produce sentences of varied argument structure complexity using a story completion task. The results indicated that both the children with SLI and the MLU controls omitted more subject arguments in the ditransitive sentences than in sentences with intransitive and ditransitive verbs. In addition, more children with SLI omitted subject arguments as linguistic complexity increased. This effect was not found for the normal age control children who never omitted subjects, regardless of increases in argument structure complexity. These results support the notion that grammatical errors in both children with SLI and their younger, normal counterparts may be due to problems with processing complex linguistic information rather than with limitations in linguistic knowledge.