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Argument structure hierarchies and alternations in causative and double object constructions

Paper · 2024 · Peter Hallman

Summary

Hallman asks which syntactic analysis of the double object alternation (give X Y vs. give Y to X) is correct. He uses evidence from Syrian Arabic, where a causative morpheme turns a transitive verb into a ditransitive one. These causative ditransitives can appear either with two bare objects or with one object marked by a preposition, exactly like change-of-possession verbs such as give. The data come from elicitation with native speakers, and the method is syntactic diagnostics: which object can become the passive subject and which can attach to the verb as a pronominal clitic.

Two dominant accounts, Larson-style dative shift and alternative projection, place the theme above the recipient. Applied to causatives, they would put the underlying agent below the underlying patient, which reverses a well-motivated thematic hierarchy. The author therefore defends a less common third view: the double object frame is the base structure, the recipient is generated above the theme, and the prepositional frame is derived from it. His unified analysis combines Larson's VP shells with Ramchand-style neo-constructionism and shows that argument ordering principles can hold across constructions.

Key points

  • Primary object tests: the paper uses passive promotion and verbal enclitic pronouns, which only the first object of either frame allows.
  • Prepositions: the preposition la- marks both recipients and locative goals. The alternative ʕa- marks only locative goals and never recipients.
  • Causative morphology: the causative is formed by gemination of the middle radical, possibly just an extra unit of syllable weight, and sits in little-v.
  • Two asymmetries:
    • Causative ditransitives resist passivization, the one contrast with give-type verbs.
    • Verbs that are already ditransitive cannot be causativized, because their external argument occupies little-v.
  • Empirical basis: the data come from five Syrian Arabic consultants, and the work was funded by FWF grant P27384-G23.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. Neutral object labels: the paper separates thematically neutral labels ("primary/secondary object") from role labels ("recipient/theme"), so one alternation can be described across verbs whose roles differ.
  • I2. Hierarchy as a consistency check: an analysis is rejected when it would rank an underlying agent below an underlying patient.
  • I3. Ambiguous prepositions: the same preposition can mark a location goal or a recipient, and only some markers or contexts allow the location reading (send Taysir to the store vs. send the letter to Taysir).
  • I4. Competition for one slot: a causer and an original external argument compete for the same position, which predicts that some derivations are blocked.
  • I5. One structure, one event: the double object and prepositional frames are treated as variants of a single underlying structure that express the same event.

For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

  • I1 (frames): Keep a positional layer (first/second object, PP object) distinct from VerbNet roles, so that frame mapping for dative-shifted and causative verbs is an explicit, auditable step.
  • I2 (learn): Use agent-above-patient ordering as a negative control on silver frames, flagging any parse or role assignment that inverts proto-agent and proto-patient.
  • I3 (world): When resolving a to-PP, decide between change of location and change of possession using whether the object is a plausible place or a plausible possessor, and record the transfer in holdings only in the possession case.
  • I4 (world): Encode verb-class constraints of the form "already ditransitive implies no further causer slot" in the compiled verb knowledge, to reject implausible frame combinations.
  • I5 (back): During generation, choose between give X Y and give Y to X from the same meaning graph, rather than storing them as separate meanings.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

 Institutions

🔬Austrian Research Institute for Artificial IntelligenceVienna · Austria2 works · 1 citation

📚 Shelves 4The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Arts and Humanities · 9,296 worksLanguage and Linguistics · 9,206 worksPsychology · 798 worksDevelopmental and Educational Psychology · 260 works

Cite

Cite as Peter Hallman. 2024. Argument structure hierarchies and alternations in causative and double object constructions. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.16995/glossa.9110

@article{hallman2024argument,
  title = {{Argument structure hierarchies and alternations in causative and double object constructions}},
  author = {Peter Hallman},
  journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
  year = {2024},
  doi = {10.16995/glossa.9110},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.9110}
}

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