Edith Ekberg

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Aspekte des Dativs

ABSTRACT IN UNDETERMINED Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the structural licensing and the semantics of the dative-DP in ditransitive constructions in German from a cognitive and construction grammar perspective. While the indirect object in constructions with prototypical ditransitive verbs is said to be a lexically selected argument of the verb, the indirect object in beneficiary ditransitive constructions and ditransitive possessor dative constructions with (in)transitive verbs is traditionally categorized as a “free" dative. These verbs are generally analyzed as accomplishments, achievements and activities which can but need not be combined with a result predicate. They describe either the coming about of a change, the creation/destruction or the obtaining of an object. In generative syntactic analyses both the subcategorized and the free beneficiary and possessor datives are usually treated the same (with few exceptions): either as arguments of a layered VP-structure, adjuncts or arguments of applicative heads. Even their case is often considered to be licensed in the same way. There are suggestions that these dative DPs bear either structural, oblique or inherent case. Within cognitive and construction grammar approaches to ditransitive constructions researchers often use the concept of established possession for both the prototypical ditransitive and the beneficiary ditransitive construction. While this is fine for the former, it cannot capture the ambiguity of constructions with beneficiary and possessor datives in German. I propose that this ambiguity arises due to the possibility to change the point of view on the action denoted by the verb. In my proposal the dative participant is related to the concept of the causal chain by Langacker (1987, 1991) in two different ways. While selected datives are part of the inherent event structure of ditransitive verbs, free datives relate to the event structure of the verb from “outside". This gives rise to their interpretation as being affected by the event. Within the framework of the neo-constructionist First-Phase Syntax (Ramchand 2008) I assume that possessor datives and free beneficiary datives when interpreted as affectees are arguments of an applicative head which is inserted above the process denoting phrase in this model. As for the recipient reading in the presence of creation/destruction verbs and verbs of obtaining, the free dative is not part of the verbal event structure but can be involved in a prospective subsequent event. Since prospectivity even is possible not only with free datives but also with not obligatorily expressed selected datives I investigate the question if there might be a difference in the syntactic licensing of the two types of datives. I show that they do not differ in their structural licensing but could be treated as arguments of resultative predicates with different categorial labeling. They bear inherent case and are inserted in a phrase right beneath the process denoting phrase of the layered decomposition frame in Ramchand’s model.