Double Object Research Articles

Object and subject Heavy-NP shift in Arabic

In order to examine whether Arabic has Heavy Noun Phrase Shifting (HNPS), I have extracted from the Prague Arabic Dependency Treebank a data set in which a verb governs either an object NP and an Adjunct Phrase (PP or AdvP) or a subject NP and an Adjunct Phrase. I have used binary logistic regression where the criterion variable is whether the subject/object NP shifts, and used as predictor variables heaviness (the number of tokens per NP, adjunct), part of speech tag, verb disposition (ie. whether the verb has a history of taking double objects or sentential objects), NP number, NP definiteness, and the presence of referring pronouns in either the NP or the adjunct. The results show that only object heaviness and adjunct heaviness are useful predictors of object HNPS, while subject heaviness, adjunct heaviness, subject part of speech tag, definiteness, and adjunct head POS tags are active predictors of subject HNPS. I also show that HNPS can in principle be predicted from sentence structure.

Accusative Case-Assignment in Double Object Constructions in Standard Arabic: A Minimalist Approach

The study investigates the issue of Double object constructions (DOCs) in Standard Arabic (SA). The investigation is conducted within the framework of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (MP) (1995, 2000, 2004), and Radford's proposals of accusative – case assignment (2004, 2009) in DOCs. The study aims to provide an account for two objectives. The first objective is to show how DOCs in SA are derived within MP. The second objective is to justify how accusative case is assigned to the first and second objects of these constructions. To achieve the first objective, the study shows that the structure of DOCs in SA can be derived by the adoption of the VP shell, one of the principles of MP, as introduced by Chomsky (1995, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008). The analysis of VP in SA reflects the fact that in DOCs the main verb has the first object as its specifer and the second object as its complement. The adoption of Radford's proposals (2004, 2009) provides a solution for the second objective of the study, the accusative – case assignment in DOCs in SA. According to Radford' proposals, the first object is assigned the accusative case by the accusative light-v whereas, the second object checks its accusative case against that of the main V. The study suggests further research on the application of MP principles on other linguistic features of SA.

Double Object Constructions Headed by 'depriving' Verbs

Double Object Constructions Headed by 'depriving' Verbs

Local pronouns in ditransitive scenarios: Corpus perspectives from English and Polish

Abstract While there is no doubt that the Rs (recipients) of ditransitive clauses are much more likely to be rendered by LPs (local persons) than Ts (themes), as reflected in the Person Role Constraint (see e.g., Perlmutter 1971; Bonet 1991, 1995; Haspelmath 2004), this paper sets out to determine whether the preference for LP Rs holds only relative to Ts or is in fact an absolute preference, i.e., a general property of Rs in ditransitive clauses. The investigation is based on a consideration of corpus data from two languages, English and Polish, both of which have a rich array of ditransitive predicates and together cover a good range of ditransitive constructions differing in degrees of grammaticalization. The investigation reveals that distribution of LPs is strongly affected by the degree of grammaticalization of a ditransitive construction and the encoding of the person forms, the levels of LP Rs and the frequency effects of the Person Role Constraint being strongest in double object constructions (DOC), less strong in the dative-accusative construction (DAC) and weakest in the prepositional construction (Prep-Cs), as shown in the cline: DOC > DAC > Prep-C. Significant differences are also noted in the distribution of LPs between different classes of ditransitive predicates, the highest level of LP Rs being with communicated message predicates and the lowest with ballistic and accompanying motion predicates.

Ditransitive predicates and dative arguments in Maltese

This paper is concerned with the syntactic expression of three argument (ditransitive) predicates in Maltese. We provide the first detailed description of the ditransitive constructions found in Maltese, which have been largely ignored in the substantial literature on ditransitive predicates, and show that the primary means of expression for these predicates uses a canonical dative construction. We argue that the canonical dative construction (with ditransitive predicates) is distinct from both a double object construction and a prepositional oblique construction in terms of the mapping of arguments to surface grammatical functions. We provide an analysis of Maltese ditransitives in the Lexical Mapping Theory of Lexical Functional Grammar.

Processing contextual and lexical cues to focus: Evidence from eye movements in reading

Three eye movement experiments investigated the interaction between contextual and lexical focus cues during reading. Context was used to focus on either the indirect or direct object of a double object construction, which was followed by a remnant continuation that formed either a congruous or incongruous contrast with the contextually focused object. Experiment 1 demonstrated that remnants were more difficult to process when incongruous with the contextually focused constituent, indicating that context was effective in specifying focus. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the interaction between context and lexical focus arising from the particle only which specifies focus on the subsequent adjacent element. When only preceded both objects (Experiment 2), the conflict between lexical and contextual focus cues disrupted processing of the remnant element and was resolved in favour of the contextually focused element. However, when only was placed between both objects (Experiment 3), cue-conflict disrupted processing earlier in the sentence but did not appear to be fully resolved during on-line sentence processing. These findings reveal that the interplay between contextual and lexical cues to focus is important for establishing focus structure during on-line sentence processing.

Effects of focus and definiteness on children's word order: evidence from German five-year-olds' reproductions of double object constructions.

Two experiments tested how faithfully German children aged 4 ;5 to 5 ;6 reproduce ditransitive sentences that are unmarked or marked with respect to word order and focus (Exp1) or definiteness (Exp2). Adopting an optimality theory (OT) approach, it is assumed that in the German adult grammar word order is ranked lower than focus and definiteness. Faithfulness of children's reproductions decreased as markedness of inputs increased; unmarked structures were reproduced most faithfully and unfaithful outputs had most often an unmarked form. Consistent with the OT proposal, children were more tolerant against inputs marked for word order than for focus; in conflict with the proposal, children were less tolerant against inputs marked for word order than for definiteness. Our results suggest that the linearization of objects in German double object constructions is affected by focus and definiteness, but that prosodic principles may have an impact on the position of a focused constituent.

Double object constructions and dative / accusative alternations in Spanish and Catalan: A unified account

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" lang="EN-US">This paper has a twofold aim: to present a unified analysis of ditransitive constructions and transitivity alternations (dative/accusative alternations) in Spanish. As for the first phenomenon, and more concretely the purported existence in Spanish of something comparable to the English dative alternation, we will show the weaknesses of what we consider an analysis fruit of the tendency consisting of finding in the Romance area an exact reflex of English facts. Therefore, we will refute the hypothesis defended by several authors (Masullo 1992, Demonte 1995, Romero 1997, Cuervo 2003a,b) according to which Spanish ditransitive constructions with dative clitic doubling correspond to double object constructions (DOC), whereas non-doubled constructions correspond to the so-called prepositional constructions (PC), or <em>to-</em>dative, in English. After a careful and exhaustive examination of the data, we will argue that Spanish (and Catalan) ditransitive constructions instantiate DOC, whether they bear clitic doubling or not.  Pronominalization facts in Catalan, a language which preserves prepositional clitics, will support this analysis, based on the postulation of an affectedness/possession restriction with gradual implementation. As for the second phenomenon of study, the existence of true case alternations in Spanish, we will argue that we are dealing with a kind of variation constrained by the same restriction (or a version of it) which acts in the realm of ditransitive predicates. Here, also, Catalan data will reveal crucial for our analysis. Crucially, we will show that what lies behind Spanish and Catalan dative/accusative alternation is an instance of Differential Indirect Object Marking (DIOM</span>

Dative alternation in Indian English: A corpus‐based analysis

ABSTRACTThe dative alternation refers to the alternation between two constructions that denote some type of transfer: the double object construction (I give my sister a book) vs. the to‐dative construction (I give a book to my sister). We examined the motivations behind the dative alternation in Indian English. A corpus study was performed based on a sample of N = 943 sentences that were drawn from the Kolhapur corpus. Using a mixed‐effects logistic regression analysis, we evaluated the effect of 14 predictors that are known to influence the dative alternation in other macro‐regional varieties of English. Three predictors were found to be significant: the sentence verb (modeled as a random intercept), the pronominality of the Recipient and the difference in length between the Recipient and the Theme. Our results further corroborate earlier findings that the to‐dative construction is more frequently used in Indian English than in other varieties. We argue that the latter tendency may be associated with a transfer from Hindi.

Case and Licensing: Evidence from ECM+DOC

This remark argues for the Case-theoretic concept of Case as a syntactic licensing requirement of DPs related to their case morphology, against alternatives where DPs need no syntactic licensing, or where their case morphology is unrelated to it. The argument is made from constraints on combining exceptional Case marking (ECM) and the double object construction, where there is a single object Agree/Case locus for two DPs. The mechanisms and nature of Case are briefly examined. The appendix sketches an extension to wager-class ECM.

Some Notes on Double Object Constructions in English

Some Notes on Double Object Constructions in English

On the inherent semantic meaning of double object Latinate verbs in English in modern and historical perspective *

Abstract This paper shows the realization of arguments of Latinate double object verbs and an analysis of their inherent semantic meaning in the Late Middle English and early Modern English periods, hence in the time-span when they were borrowed into English. The main aim of this paper is to show that although Latinate verbs occur in a construction with what seems to be an allative preposition, not all of them lexicalize movement in the inherent meanings. In contrast, some Latinate verbs lexicalize only a caused possession. What is more, this paper shows that the caused possession Latinate verbs select a different variant of prepositional object construction than the one selected by Latinate verbs lexicalizing movement.

Electron Localization, Tunneling and Energy Spectrum for Systems of Double Quantum Dots

ABSTRACTSemiconductor heterostructures as quantum dots demonstrate discrete atom-like energy level structure based on several hundred of electron confinement states. In the case of double QD (DQD) or double QR (DQR), there is a single electron spectrum composed of a set of quasi-doublets. We study these specific spectrum properties with their relation to the electron tunneling in DQD (DCQR) when the wave function of electron localized initially in one of the double quantum object is spread into whole system. The double InAs/GaAs quantum dots are considered within the effective approach. Tunneling in DQD is studied in connection with change of inter-dot distance and QD geometry. There are two types of such tunneling in DQD. The first is related to tunneling in the system of two identical QDs; the second one occurs in the system of non-identical QDs. The tunneling in the DQR is a tunneling in the system with non-identical quantum objects. The quasi-doublets of the DQD spectrum play an important role in the tunneling. We study effect of violation of symmetry of DQD geometry on the tunneling and show that the violation of symmetry makes difficulties for such tunneling.

Selective transfer in the acquisition of English double object constructions by Brazilian learners

The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBERG, 1995) by Brazilian learners. We hypothesize that, due to first language (L1) influences, the prepositional ditransitive construction (John gave a book to Mary) will be acquired earlier, while the ditransitive construction (John gave Mary a book) will be part of the learner's interlanguages (SELINKER, 1972) only at the advanced level of proficiency. We also hypothesize that learners may transfer (ODLIN, 1989) the placement of the object pronoun in pre-verbal position from their L1 to their interlanguage in early stages of acquisition (João me deu um livro / *John me gave a book). We test our hypotheses by comparing the performance of three groups of learners (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) and native speakers of English on an acceptability judgment task used as a measure of learnability and generalization. Results confirm the order of acquisition of the English double object constructions predicted for native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Moreover, results suggest that, although mother tongue influences may have taken place, they do not do so pervasively, but rather selectively, corroborating the proposal by Kellerman (1983).

Are non-native structural preferences affected by native language preferences?

A structural priming experiment investigated whether bilingual speakers’ processing of their non-native language (L2) depends entirely on their experience of L2, or whether it is also affected by their experience of the native language (L1). German-L1 and Spanish-L1 proficient speakers of English (and English-L1 controls) described pictures of dative events after reading unrelated sentences that had a Prepositional Object (PO) or Double Object (DO) structure. Participants in all three groups were more likely to produce DO descriptions after reading DO sentences than PO sentences. Crucially, Spanish-L1 speakers, whose L1 allows PO but not DO structures, showed the same pattern of priming as German-L1 speakers, whose L1 allows both structures. Additionally, the groups showed no difference in their baseline preference for DO structures. We suggest that in proficient bilinguals, processing in L2 is not affected by L1 experience and L1 preferences, and propose a model to account for our findings.

Ditransitieve constructies in het Nederlands: semasiologische en onomasiologische kwesties

This paper presents a construction-based exploration of a number of formal and semantic issues surrounding the Dutch double object and prepositional dative constructions. The first part of the paper deals with the formal demarcation of these constructions vis-à-vis other three-place argument structure constructions. The second part discusses diachronic shifts and synchronic variation in the constructional semantics of the double object pattern, the third part briefly looks into the semantic relation between the double object construction and the prepositional dative. The overall aim of the paper is to give a general impression of the way such issues are dealt with in construction grammar.

Ditransitieven en het nut van hiërarchische structuur en derivatie

Calling into question the usefulness of linearly oriented constructional templates, this paper presents a variety of arguments for the significance of syntactic hierarchical structure and, in particular, the concept of ‘small clause’ in the analysis of ditransitive constructions, and underscores the role of a derivational relationship between the two members of the dative alternation (V-NP-PP and V-NP-NP). The double object construction is compared in detail to a superficially very similar V-NP-NP construction in which the second NP is the predicate of the first. The behaviour of verb-particle constructions plays a central role in the discussion, which is broadly based on Den Dikken (1995). The paper closes with some broader remarks about the efficacy of a constructional approach to resultative constructions in general.

English Double Object Constructions and Lexical Constraint Transfer

English Double Object Constructions and Lexical Constraint Transfer

Effect of Repeated Evaluation and Repeated Exposure on Acceptability Ratings of Sentences

This study investigated the effect of repeated evaluation and repeated exposure on grammatical acceptability ratings for both acceptable and unacceptable sentence types. In Experiment 1, subjects in the Experimental group rated multiple examples of two ungrammatical sentence types (ungrammatical binding and double object with dative-only verb), and two difficult to process sentence types [center-embedded (2) and garden path ambiguous relative], along with matched grammatical/non-difficult sentences, before rating a final set of experimental sentences. Subjects in the control group rated unrelated sentences during the exposure period before rating the experimental sentences. Subjects in the Experimental group rated both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences as more acceptable after repeated evaluation than subjects in the Control group. In Experiment 2, subjects answered a comprehension question after reading each sentence during the exposure period. Subjects in the experimental group rated garden path and center-embedded (1) sentences as higher in acceptability after comprehension exposure than subjects in the control group. The results are consistent with increased fluency of comprehension being misattributed as a change in acceptability.

Avoiding dative overgeneralisation errors: semantics, statistics or both?

How do children eventually come to avoid the production of overgeneralisation errors, in particular, those involving the dative (e.g., *I said her “no”)? The present study addressed this question by obtaining from adults and children (5–6, 9–10 years) judgements of well-formed and over-general datives with 301 different verbs (44 for children). A significant effect of pre-emption—whereby the use of a verb in the prepositional-object (PO)-dative construction constitutes evidence that double-object (DO)-dative uses are not permitted—was observed for every age group. A significant effect of entrenchment—whereby the use of a verb in any construction constitutes evidence that unattested dative uses are not permitted—was also observed for every age group, with both predictors also accounting for developmental change between ages 5–6 and 9–10 years. Adults demonstrated knowledge of a morphophonological constraint that prohibits Latinate verbs from appearing in the DO-dative construction (e.g., *I suggested her the trip). Verbs’ semantic properties (supplied by independent adult raters) explained additional variance for all groups and developmentally, with the relative influence of narrow- vs broad-range semantic properties increasing with age. We conclude by outlining an account of the formation and restriction of argument-structure generalisations designed to accommodate these findings.