Cover not available
Part of
Beyond Emotions in Language: Psychological verbs at the interfaces
Edited by Bożena Rozwadowska and Anna Bondaruk
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 263] 2020
► pp. 213–244

Chapter 6
The information structure of high and low datives and their psychological import

| University of Seville

I discuss the syntax and discourse properties of (Experiencer) datives in Spanish, in a comparative view with the syntactic strategies used in other languages such as English, which do not easily exhibit the pattern OVS in (broadly speaking) psychological constructions. I address a crucial distinction between high datives and low datives (Harley, 1995; Pylkkänen, 2002, 2008; Cuervo, 2003; Schäfer, 2012 or McIntyre, 2006), and propose that in all-focus sentences when there is a high dative, the dative occurs in first position. On the other hand, low datives show up in postverbal position in broad-focus sentences. If by any chance, these low datives occur at the initial portion of the sentence, it is because the discourse interpretation is not that of broad focus and hence either a topic-comment or background-focus configuration must be called for.

Keywords: datives, experiencer, high applicative, low applicative, information structure, peripheral vs. central datives, broad focus, topic
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Towards a semantic classification of datives
  • 3.Two diagnostics for two types of datives
  • 4.High and low applicatives and information structure
    • 4.1High applicatives, intervention and information structure
    • 4.2Low applicatives, information structure and word order
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.263.06jim
References

References

Armstrong, G.
(2012) ‘Internalization’ as a grammatically relevant notion in Spanish. Paper presented at Coloquio de Gramática Generativa 22. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, March 21–23, 2012.
(2013) Agentive reflexive clitics and transitive se constructions in Spanish. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 2(2), 81–128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bianchi, V., Bocci, G., & Cruschina, S.
(2015) Focus fronting and its implicatures. In E. Aboh, A. Hulk, J. Schaeffer, & P. Sleeman (Eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2013: Selected papers from Going Romance, Amsterdam 2013 (pp. 1–20). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bondaruk, A.
(2020) The syntax of accusative and dative Experiencers in Polish. In B. Rozwadowska & A. Bondaruk (Eds.), Beyond Emotions in Language. Psychological verbs at the interfaces. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (this volume) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bosse, S., & Bruening, B.
(2011) Benefactive versus experiencer datives. In M. B. Washburn (Ed.), Proceedings of the 28th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (pp. 69–77). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Google Scholar
Bosse, S., Bruening, B., & Yamada, M.
(2012) Affected experiencers. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 30(4), 1185–1230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Campos, H.
(1999) Transitividad e intranstividad. In I. Bosque & V. Demonte (Eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española (pp. 1519–1574). Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N.
(2000) Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In R. Martin, D. Michaels, & J. Uriagereka (Eds.), Step by step. Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik (pp. 89–155). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
(2008) On phases. In R. Freidin, C. P. Otero, & M. L. Zubizarreta (Eds.), Foundational issues in linguistic theory. Essays in honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud (pp. 133–166). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Contreras, H.
(1983) El orden de palabras en español. Madrid: Cátedra.Google Scholar
Cruschina, S.
(2012) Discourse-related features and functional projections. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuervo, M. C.
(2003)  Datives at large (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). MIT.
(2010a) La estructura de expresiones con verbos livianos y experimentante. Cuadernos de la ALFAL, 1, 194–206.Google Scholar
(2010b) Some dative subjects are born, some are made. In C. Borgonovo, M. Español-Echevarría, & P. Prévost (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 12th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 26–37). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Dąbrowska, E.
(1997) Cognitive semantics and the Polish dative. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Miguel, E., & Fernández-Lagunilla, M.
(2000) El operador aspectual ‘se’. Revista Española de Lingüística, 30(1), 13–44.Google Scholar
Demonte, V.
(1987) Prepositions, c-command, and predication. Linguistic Inquiry, 18(1), 147–157.Google Scholar
(1994) La ditransitividad en español: Léxico y sintaxis. In V. Demonte (Ed.), Estudios de lingüística de España y México (pp. 115–150). México: El Colegio de México.Google Scholar
Di Tullio, Á.
(2005) Manual de gramática del español. Buenos Aires: La isla de la luna.Google Scholar
Fábregas, A., & Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L.
(2016a) Extraction from gerunds and the internal syntax of verbs. Linguistics, 54, 1307–1354. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016b) Extraction out of adjectival secondary predicates in English and Spanish: A nanosyntactic account. Questions and Answers in Linguistics, 3(2), 41–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fábregas, A., Jiménez-Fernández, A. L., & Tubino-Blanco, M.
(2017). ‘What's up’ with datives? In R. Lopez, J. Avelar, & S. Cyrino (Eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 12. Selected papers from the 45th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Campinas, Brazil (pp. 29–48). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fábregas, A., & Marín, R.
(2020) Agents, states and passives in Spanish psych verbs. In B. Rozwadowska & A. Bondaruk (Eds.), Beyond Emotions in Language. Psychological verbs at the interfaces. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (this volume) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Soriano, O.
(1999) Two types of impersonal sentences in Spanish: Locative and dative subjects. Syntax, 2(2), 101–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Soriano, O., & Mendikoetxea, A.
(2011) Non-selected dative subjects in anticausative constructions. Archivio Glottologico Italiano, 96(1), 87–127.Google Scholar
Folli, R., & Harley, H.
(2005) Flavours of v: Consuming results in Italian and English. In P. Kempchinsky & R. Slabakova (Eds.), Aspectual enquiries (pp. 95–120). Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gallego, Á.
(2007)  Phase Theory and parametric variation (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Greenberg, J.
(1963) Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Bravo, R.
(2006) A reinterpretation of quirky-subjects and related phenomena in Spanish. In J.-P. Y. Montreuil & C. Nishida (Eds.), New perspectives in Romance linguistics (pp. 127–142). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez Ordóñez, S.
(1999) Los dativos. In I. Bosque, & V. Demonte (Eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española (pp. 1855–1930). Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar
Haegeman, L., Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L., & Radford, A.
(2014) Deconstructing the subject condition in terms of cumulative constraint violation. The Linguistic Review, 31 (1), 73–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harley, H.
(1995)  Subjects, events, and licensing (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). MIT.
Hernanz, M. L., & J. M. Brucart
(1987) La sintaxis 1. Principios generales. La oración simple. Barcelona: Crítica.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. J.
(1982) Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. K.
(2002) The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L.
(2009) The low periphery of double object constructions in English and Spanish. Philologia Hispalensis, 23, 179–200.Google Scholar
(2010) Discourse-agreement features, phasal C and the edge: A minimalist approach. Diacrítica – Language Sciences Series, 24(1), 25–49.Google Scholar
(2015a) When focus goes wild: An empirical study of two syntactic positions for information focus. Linguistics Beyond and Within, 1, 119–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015b) Towards a typology of focus: Subject position and microvariation at the discourse-syntax interface. Ampersand: An International Journal of General and Applied Linguistics, 2, 49–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) Prepositions and islands: Extraction from dative and accusative DPs in psych verbs. In J. Emonds & M. Janevobá (Eds.), Language use and linguistic structures, (Vol. 5, 155–172). Olomouc: Palacký University Press.Google Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L., & Miyagawa, S.
(2014) A feature-inheritance approach to root phenomena and parametric variation. Lingua, 145, 275–302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L., & Rozwadowska, B.
(2016) The information structure of Dative Experiencer psych verbs. In B. Cetnarowska, M. Kuczok, & M. Zabawa (Eds.), Various dimensions of contrastive studies (pp. 100–121). Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego.Google Scholar
(2017) On subject properties of datives in psych predicates. A comparative approach. Acta Linguistica Hungarica/Academica, 64(2), 1–24.Google Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L., & Saab, A.
(2016) Subextraction from DOM DPs: New evidence from Río de la Plata Spanish. Paper delivered at Romania Nova VIII, Buenos Aires.
Jiménez-Fernández, Á. L., & Tubino Blanco, M.
(2019) Causativity in Southern Peninsular Spanish. In Á. J. Gallego (Ed.), The syntactic variation of Spanish dialects (pp. 181–212). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lasnik, H., & Park, M.-K.
(2003) The EPP and the subject condition under sluicing. Linguistic Inquiry, 34, 649–660. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, J.
(2004) Spanish reflexive pronouns: A null preposition hypothesis. In V. Chand, A. Kelleler, A. J. Rodríguez, & B. Schmeiser (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (pp. 528–540). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
(2016) Spanish aspectual se as an indirect object reflexive: The import of atelicity, bare nouns, and leísta PCC repairs. Probus, 29(1), 73–117.Google Scholar
Masullo, P.
(1992) Two types of quirky subjects: Spanish vs. Icelandic”. NELS, 23, 303–317.Google Scholar
McIntyre, A.
(2006) The interpretation of German datives and English ‘have’. In D. P. Hole, W. Abraham, & A. Meinunger (Eds.), Datives and other cases: Between argument structure and event structure (pp. 185–211). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miyagawa, S., & Tsujigka, T.
(2004) Argument structure and ditransitive verbs in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 13, 1–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pineda, A.
(2014)  Les fronteres de la (in)transitivitat (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Pujalte, M., & Saab, A.
(2011) Dativos agregados y movimiento-A: Un argumento en favor de la teoría de control por movimiento. Cuadernos de la Alfal, 3, 200–215.Google Scholar
Pylkkänen, L.
(2002)  Introducing arguments (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). MIT.
(2008) Introducing Arguments. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J.
(1985) A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rákosi, G.
(2006) Dative experiencer predicates in Hungarian. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Schäfer, F.
(2008) The syntax of (anti-)causatives. External arguments in change-of-state contexts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012) Two types of external argument licensing: The case of causers. Studia Linguistica, 66, 128–180. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strozer, J.
(1976)  Clitics in Spanish (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California.
Tubino-Blanco, M.
(2007)  Preverbal datives are not quirky subjects (Unpublished master thesis) University of Arizona.
(2011) Causatives in minimalism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Uriagereka, J.
(1995) Aspects of the theory of clitic placement in Western Romance. Linguistic Inquiry, 26, 79–123.Google Scholar
Willim, E.
(2020) The Polish impersonal middle with a dative as a syntactically-derived experience construction. In B. Rozwadowska & A. Bondaruk (Eds.), Beyond Emotions in Language. Psychological verbs at the interfaces.Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (this volume) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Bondaruk, Anna
2020. Chapter 5. The syntax of accusative and dative Experiencers in Polish. In Beyond Emotions in Language [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 263], ► pp. 141 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.