Is there a dative alternation in Romanian?
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Alexandra Cornilescu
Abstract
Against recent claims that Romance languages lack a genuine dative alternation since they lack a genuine Prepositional Dative Construction (e.g., Pineda 2012), we bring evidence that, in Romanian, even in Recipient ditransitive constructions, datives manifest either DP or PP properties. In order to establish this result, we examine both the (internal) structure of the Romanian inflectional dative, and the prepositional dative, marked by the preposition la “at”/“to” and show that both forms require a ‘dual categorial analysis’, in order to allow licensing of their case and person features. While the default interpretation of datives in Recipient ditransitive constructions is that of DPs (whence the possibility of clitic doubling (CD)), there is a class of contexts (e.g., double datives, featuring a possessive dative and a Goal/Recipient dative), where the Recipient must be projected as a PP, since otherwise it cannot be licensed. The dual categorization of the Recipient as a DP/PP proves the existence of a genuine dative alternation in Romanian.
Abstract
Against recent claims that Romance languages lack a genuine dative alternation since they lack a genuine Prepositional Dative Construction (e.g., Pineda 2012), we bring evidence that, in Romanian, even in Recipient ditransitive constructions, datives manifest either DP or PP properties. In order to establish this result, we examine both the (internal) structure of the Romanian inflectional dative, and the prepositional dative, marked by the preposition la “at”/“to” and show that both forms require a ‘dual categorial analysis’, in order to allow licensing of their case and person features. While the default interpretation of datives in Recipient ditransitive constructions is that of DPs (whence the possibility of clitic doubling (CD)), there is a class of contexts (e.g., double datives, featuring a possessive dative and a Goal/Recipient dative), where the Recipient must be projected as a PP, since otherwise it cannot be licensed. The dual categorization of the Recipient as a DP/PP proves the existence of a genuine dative alternation in Romanian.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- The acquisition of verbal passives by Portuguese-speaking children 9
- Plus in the French negative system 29
- An experimental approach to parallelism in ellipsis 49
- On focal and wh -projections, indirect wh -questions, and quantificational chains 73
- Is there a dative alternation in Romanian? 91
- The interpretation of null subjects in Romanian 111
- Verum focus and Romanian polar questions 135
- The downward grammaticalisation of irrealis subordinators in Romanian, Salentino and southern Calabrese 157
- Differential object marking 171
- The effects of language ecology on syntactic structure 193
- The syntactic distribution of raddoppiamento fonosinttatico in Cosentino 205
- The causative-inchoative alternation (as we know it) might fall short 239
- On wh -extraction in de + que constructions in Spanish 263
- On another apparent violation of the subject-island constraint in French 277
- Moving towards an event 297
- Cyclicity without containment in Romanian perfects 311
- Dative clitics in Romanian ditransitives 335
- Syntactic vs pragmatic passive 357
- Index 373
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- The acquisition of verbal passives by Portuguese-speaking children 9
- Plus in the French negative system 29
- An experimental approach to parallelism in ellipsis 49
- On focal and wh -projections, indirect wh -questions, and quantificational chains 73
- Is there a dative alternation in Romanian? 91
- The interpretation of null subjects in Romanian 111
- Verum focus and Romanian polar questions 135
- The downward grammaticalisation of irrealis subordinators in Romanian, Salentino and southern Calabrese 157
- Differential object marking 171
- The effects of language ecology on syntactic structure 193
- The syntactic distribution of raddoppiamento fonosinttatico in Cosentino 205
- The causative-inchoative alternation (as we know it) might fall short 239
- On wh -extraction in de + que constructions in Spanish 263
- On another apparent violation of the subject-island constraint in French 277
- Moving towards an event 297
- Cyclicity without containment in Romanian perfects 311
- Dative clitics in Romanian ditransitives 335
- Syntactic vs pragmatic passive 357
- Index 373
