Primary object languages & pronouns

Fri Apr 25 05:29:32 UTC 2003

One caveat: constructing dative-shift types of examples with pronouns,
especially the first person accusative/dative 'me' in English could be
misleading. I suspect that this pronoun has a little bit of 'ethical
dative' in it (as common in Romance languages). It is better to
construct examples using names or NPs.

-- Dan

.........................
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
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University of Manchester
Oxford Road
M13 9PL
Manchester, UK
dan.everett at man.ac.uk
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 1:16 AM
To: FUNKNET at LISTSERV.RICE.EDU
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns

True. The relationship (whether one tries to express it in a "rule" or
not) is complex, not exactly the same for all different subcases, not
fully bi-directional, not blindly or mechanically applicable, and so
forth. I guess it depends on one's definitions whether a relationship of
this kind can be "systematic". There are certainly reasonable
definitions by which it can. I was maintaining that I think there are
systematic relationships of that non-absolute sort which hold between
the two types of constructions, and that speakers know this.

I think you describe well the prototypical cases, and your "he blew me
the whistle" example is nice. But there are other cases where something
not clearly "construable as a recipient, even if it is also (and maybe
basically) a beneficiary" can still be coded by the dative construction,
e.g. I could say "eat me a couple of hallacas" to someone going to
Venezuela. (Maybe I use the construction more loosely than many: I could
say "mow me the lawn" with little if any discomfort. "Mow me the lawn
and I'll fix you a black cow"--why not?)

Ellen's "spare the wild claims for me" and "donate the LSA something"
examples are fun, too, though it's noteworthy that "spare" is not
causing a change of any sort, and "donate" has little sense of motion.

All of this underlines the fact that there are subtleties to the
relationships, but of course doesn't deny that the relationships are
there.

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Payne [mailto:tpayne at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:10 PM
To: 'David Tuggy'
Subject: RE: Primary object languages & pronouns

Dear David

  If the verb does not involve motion (transfer of an object from agent
to recipient), then the oblique object is possible, but not the shifted
version:

Mow the lawn for me.
??Mow me the lawn.

 What you say is correct: If "falp" is a non-motional change of state
verb, and "Falp me that blivit" is possible, then "Falp that blivit for
me" is also possible, but not necessarily the other way around. In order
to be shifted, the dative thing must be construable as a recipient, even
if it is also (and maybe basically) a beneficiary. Non-transfer verbs
effectively *become* transfer verbs when put into a dative shift
construction.

He blew the whistle for me.
He blew me the whistle.

The second one, it seems to me, means "transferred the whistle to me by
means of blowing," rather than being a paraphrase of the first one.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu] On Behalf Of David Tuggy
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:58 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns

I find it hard to believe that English speakers generally are not
consciously aware (I certainly was from childhood on) of the consistent
paraphrase relationship between utterances such as "Give me that!" and
"Give that to me!", "Hand me the scissors" and "hand the scissors to
me", etc. and able to effortlessly switch between the two types.

I see the major problem with the old transformational-type analyses (in
which tradition I gather your 1986 proposal stood, couched in Relational
Grammar terms) as being the way they tried to make one kind of structure
absolutely dependent for its existence on another, as if it didn't exist
in its own right. But to therefore deny that speakers know the two types
of structures are related seems unnecessary and intrinsically and
experientially unlikely.

Do you really see this as a non-productive pattern? It seems to me that
if a new verb is coined  which denotes causing a non-motional change of
state, --e.g. munge, which I learned the other day-- I know that if I
can say "munge me this file" I can also say "munge this file for me" and
convey very nearly the same thing. Similarly if it's a causing-of-motion
verb (say "falp"), if I can say "falp him that blivit", I can also (most
probably,
anyway) say "falp that blivit to him". Especially if "falping" saliently
involves changing possession or control of the blivit (or whatever) it's
a sure thing.

Not?

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:35 PM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns

In answer to David Tuggy's question, I would at the very least deny that
they are related in the way that I proposed in my 1986 paper, by an
antidative rule by which the construction in "I gave the book to Mary"
is derived from "I gave Mary the book" by a rule which promotes the
secondary object to primary object and demotes the primary object to
chomeur.  I am skeptical that speakers are aware, consciously or
unconsciously, of a systematic relationship between the two syntactic
frames in English, but if they are, the awareness is akin to awareness
of other nonproductive patterns, and unlike the awareness of more
productive relationships.

Matthew Dryer

--On Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:19 PM -0600 David Tuggy
<david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:

> Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean

> "the relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or
"there
> is no relationship between them", or something else?
>
> I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you
do,
> but not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some
> non-conscious cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.
>
> I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive
correlation--that's
> what I'm trying to clarify.
>
> --David Tuggy
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