Dative alternation : a syntacic and semantic phenomenon

• Autor(a) principal: Fritsch, Fernanda Serpa
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_RS
• Texto Completo: http://tede2.pucrs.br/tede2/handle/tede/2162
• topic: PORTUGUÊS - GRAMÁTICA; INGLÊS - GRAMÁTICA; GRAMÁTICA COMPARADA - VERBOS; SINTAXE; VERBOS; CNPQ::LINGUISTICA, LETRAS E ARTES::LETRAS

Among studies of verb transitivity, the study of ditransitive verbs can be found. These verbs are those which have two internal arguments, a fact which has raised a number of questions and challenges concerning their syntactic structure. One of these challenges is related to a variation in structure known as Dative Alternation. Such an alternation seems to be restricted only to some languages; it occurs in English, but apparently cannot be found in Romance languages of which Portuguese is an example. There is, however, a change in meaning caused by the alternation in the languages where it can be found; in English, for instance, the structure known as dative (V NP PP) is associated with a motion meaning, while its alternate, known as double-object variant, or DOC (V NP NP), is associated with a meaning of possession. This fact raises a question as to how languages which do not present Dative Alternation convey such meanings. In studying the structure of ditransitive verbs in Portuguese in search of an answer, it is possible to observe that there is an alternation in structure, even if it does not seem to follow the same pattern as Dative Alternation does in English, since the internal arguments in Portuguese may switch in order, but the recipient argument does not lose its preposition; in one dialect, though, there is the possibility of an order such as V NP NP occurring, but its meaning is not related to possession; it seems to cause only a change in focus between the theme and the recipient. The structures for ditransitive verbs both in Portuguese and in English call for a syntactic explanation, and two theories which might be used in order to provide this explanation are Chomsky s Government and Binding Theory (GB) and Pollard and Sag s Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). The first is the most widely adopted and followed theory among those in the generative model, while the latter has been developed more recently, based on a bigger concept of lexicon, differing from simply a list of entries. Both theories, however, seem to fail in explaining ditransitive verbs and the semantic differences arising from the alternation of their syntactical structures. GB, following a binary branching approach, presents difficulties to justify how a verb can select two internal arguments. Suggesting that the accusative and dative arguments establish two different sorts of relation with the verb. HPSG, on the other hand, is not fastened to the number of arguments a verb may select, defending that both datives and accusatives are sisters in the argument structure.