different structures, convergent interpretations. · alumno recibió una llamada por teléfono....

Anna Pineda (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) [email protected]

Seminario CSIC Madrid, 29 de noviembre de 2010

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Different structures, convergent interpretations.

Basque-romance study of the accusative / dative alternations

0. I�TRODUCTIO�

The aim of this work is to account for a phenomenon of syntactic microvariation

found not only in the Romance area but also in Basque: the coexistence in several

linguistic systems of two syntactic structures with a parallel meaning. Among the verbs

that take part in this phenomenon there are those that I name of communicative transfer

and those of transfer of possession:

(1) Catalan Occitan Italian Spanish Basque

telefonar telefonar telefonare telefonear (telefonoz) deitu

trucar sonar chiamare llamar

tocar apelar

cridar

picar

escriure escribir

contestar rispondere contestar erantzun

Verbs of commun

icative transfer

respondre responder

robar robar lapurtu

Verbs of

transfer of

possession

dispossession

furtar hurtar

�� A part of the results of this work has already been presented:

XXIX Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística, Santiago de Compostel·la 1-4 February 2010. Títol: «La sintaxis léxica nos llama: los verbos de la clase telefonear en lenguas romances i euskera».

XXVIé Congrés Internacional de Lingüística i Filologia Romàniques, València 6-11 September de 2010. «L’alternança acusatiu / datiu en els verbs de transmissió, reflex de la Ubicació / Destinació».



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1. DESCRIPTIO� OF THE PE�OME�O�

1.1. Verbs of communicative transfer

Starting for the verbs of the phone-type, we observe that beyond the ditransitives

constructions -today quite infrequent- in which it is specified what is transmitted (2),

they can be inserted in two syntactic configurations that are distinguished by the case

assigned to the argument which denotes the person receiving the call, which can be

dative (3) or accusative (4):

(2) a. En Joan em telefonà la notícia (Catalan) b. Lo Joan me telefonèt la nòva (Occitan) c. Juan me telefoneó la noticia (Spanish) d. Gianni mi telefonò la notizia (Italian)

(3) a. En Joan {telefonà/trucà } a la seva filla � Li {telefonà/trucà} (Catalan) b. Lo Joan telefonèt a la siá filha � Li telefonèt (Occitan) c. Juan {llamó/telefoneó} a su hija �Le {llamó/telefoneó} (Spanish)

d. Gianni {telefonò/chiamò} a sua figlia �Le {telefonò/chiamò} (Italian)

(4) a. En Joan {telefonà/trucà} (a) la seva filla � La {telefonà/trucà} (Catalan) b. Lo Joan {sonèt/apelèt} la siá filha � La {sonèt/apelèt} (Occitan) c. Juan {llamó/telefoneó} a su hija � La {llamó/telefoneó} (Spanish) d. Gianni {telefonò/chiamò} sua figlia � La {telefonò/chiamò} (Italian)

In the case of Spanish, one could say, at first glance, that it is an instance of

laísmo / loísmo, but this option is ruled out by the existence of passive forms of these

verbs and by the fact that in most cases the 2ueva gramática de the lengua española

(2GLE from now on) as well as the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas (DPD from

now onwards) recognize that it is an alternation of regime.1

In the case of Catalan, besides the use with accusative of telefonar and trucar,

specially found in zones of the Central dialect (e.g. in the regions of Lluçanès, Berguedà,

Gironès and Baix Camp), we also have to take into account the geosynonyms tocar and

cridar, typical of the Valencian area: 2

(5) a. Andreu toca a sa mare

b. Li toca

c. !La toca

1 A specially illustrative example is the following one:

(i) Escriba nuevamente las siguientes frases, dándoles un giro activo o reflejo, y

conservando el mismo sujeto. EJEMPLO: El alumno fue llamado por teléfono. → El

alumno recibió una llamada por teléfono. (Curso de redacción: teoría y práctica de la

composición y del estilo, by Gonzalo Martín Vivaldi i Arsenio Sánchez Pérez. Paraninfo, 2000.)

2 However, we have attested the sentence La va tocar i li va dir que no vinguera, formulated spontaneously by a Valencian-speaking person (though temporarily resident in Banyoles, Girona).



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(6) a. Andreu crida a sa mare

b. Li crida c. La crida

And it is still necessary to mention another verb, picar (per telèfon), used with

dative in the Valencian dialect and in the area of Tortosa (7), but with accusative in

other zones of Catalonia (8):

(7) a. Andreu pica a sa mare

b. Li pica

(8) a. L’Andreu pica la seva mare

b. La pica

The same accusative / dative alternation is found with other verbs of transfer of

communication, such as escriure ‘to write’ (9) and contestar ‘to answer’ or respondre

‘to answer’ (10), which we exemplify with sentences of Catalan –they constitute a

phenomenon of dialectal variation with an also little homogeneous distribution, and

perhaps influenced by intergenerational differences:

(9) a. Vaig escriure la Maria per demanar-li com es trobava � La vaig escriure

b. Vaig escriure a la Maria per demanar-li com es trobava � Li vaig escriure

(10) a. Vas contestar/respondre la teva mare de mala manera � La vas contestar/respondre

b. Vas contestar/respondre a la teva mare de mala manera � Li vas

contestar/respondre

Also in the case of these other verbs, the phenomenon turns up in other places of

the whole Romance area, the variant which encodes the complement of person in

accusative being normatively ignored:

(11) a. Hace tiempo que no la escribe (Spanish) b. Esa chica no te había dicho nada del otro jueves, para que tú la contestes así

(Spanish) c. Se il tuo capo ti offende regolarmente [...] io l'ho risposto a tono e senza scrupoli

(Italian)

Moreover, some of these verbs enter another alternation, which in Catalan is only

recognized for contestar, while in Spanish it is accepted for contestar and responder:3

(12) a. Va contestar / respondre una carta

b. Contestó / respondió una carta

c. Va contestar / respondre a una carta

d. Contestó / respondió a una carta

3 The analysis of this prepositional alternation due to a change of syntactic regime lines up with that of the accusative / dative alternation of the complement of person which these verbs can also enter, as we explain in a detailed way in Pineda (2010b).



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Also in Basque we find this kind of alternation with verbs of communicative

transfer, e.g. deitu ‘to phone’:

(13) a. Telefonoz deitzen d-io-t (Western area) phone-instr call aux:abs.3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.1.sg ‘I call himDAT by phone’

b. Telefonoz dei egin d-io-t

phone-instr cal make aux:abs.3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.1.sg ‘I make a call to him by phone, I make himDAT a call by phone’

c. Telefonoz deitzen du-t (Eastern area) phone-instr call aux:abs.3.sg-erg.1.sg ‘I call himAC by phone’

In (13a) the auxiliary bears three case markers but only two arguments can be

phonologically realized4 � deitu is an unergative verb = dei egin ‘to make call’. The

presence of the nominal dei at some stage of the derivation licenses the absolutive in the

auxiliary (phenomenon NOR izuna 'false absolutive'). As a matter of fact, as

synonymous of (13a) there exists a construction that superficially reflects this

hypothesized structure (13b). Finally, (13c) corresponds to the variant with absolutive

for the complement of person.

While for idatzi ‘to write’ it seems that this variation is non-existent, for erantzun

‘to answer’ it does exist.5

4 This phenomenon (NOR izuna ‘false absolutive’) is also found in verbs like begiratu ‘to look’ or eskertu ‘to thank’: (i) a. Jakinminez begiratzen d-io-t

Curiosity-instr look aux:abs.3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.1.sg ‘I look himDAT with curiosity’ b. 2ire lehengusuari eskertzen d-io-t

My cousin-det-dat thank a3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.1.sg ‘I thank my cousinDAT’ 5 However, for this verb the use of the dative for the complement of person is nearly general, which probably has to do with the fact that, etymologically, the infix –ra– (erantzun) corresponds to a mechanism (at present inactive) of creation of causative verbs, in this case from entzun ‘to listen’, in the line of the doublets ikusi ‘to see’ – erakutsi ‘to show, to make see’, ikasi ‘to learn’ – irakatsi ‘to teach, to make learn', etc.



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1.2. Verbs of transfer of possession6

Besides the configurations in which one specifies as the stolen thing (in accusative)

as the victim of the action (in dative) (14), the verb robar ‘to steal’ can be inserted in

two other configurations in which the same participant (the victim) is expressed but

maintaining in one case the dative (15a) and using the accusative in the other one (15b):

(14) Han robat la cartera al Joan

(15) a. Han robat al Joan � Li han robat

b. Han robat el Joan � L’han robat

In this case the variation is acknowledged by the Catalan normative grammar, but

the semantic distinction that grammarians try to establish seems not to be assumed by

speakers, but rather the use of one structure or the other depends on diatopic –and

maybe also diastratic– variation.

On the other hand, in Spanish the accusative for the person is only accepted if the

verb means ‘to kidnap’, but the real fact is that in some varieties the accusative can also

refer to the person to whom something is stolen (even passives as in (16 b)):

(16) a. Anoche también un compañero nuestro fue víctima de la inseguridad, le

tiraron una piedra, le rompieron el parabrisas y cuando bajó del autobús, lo

robaron a él y a los pasajeros

b. ¿Dices que él fue robado en su casa por segunda vez y que lo han dejado nada

más que con su casa, su familia y lo que lleva puesto? Crucially, the 2GLE (§35.8n) admits that «el verbo robar (en el sentido de

‘desposeer a alguien de algo’ [...]) admite complementos directos de persona en el

español de algunas áreas, entre otras la rioplatense, la caribeña continental, la mexicana

y la europea, como en A Maite la robaron ayer en el tren [...]», though this use is

described as laísmo or loísmo and branded as little advisable.7

In the case of Catalan, regarding the Valencian form furtar ‘to steal’, we have to

say that the current general use implies the specification of what has been taken off, as

the normative grammar reflects in recognizing only the transitive use with a DO

referred to the loot. Nevertheless, in Pineda (2010a) we pick up occurrences in Middle

6 Within the group of verbs that indicate dispossession, we do not take into account the archaic form emblar, whose behavior is analyzed in Pineda (2010a). 7 Specifically, the 2GLE (§16.10e) attributes it to a crossing «entre las estructuras que exigen complemento directo y las que piden uno indirecto [...] es posible robar una billetera robar una billetera

y también robar a alguien una billetera, por lo que los hablantes laístas [y loístas] tienden a formar oraciones como A Laura la robaron la billetera [...], A mi hermana la robaron». It is necessary to say that the cases of laísmo or loísmo with explicit DO of thing (A mi hija la robaron los pendientes, las pulseras

y el dinero que llevaba (ABC 13/11/1987) are described as less frequents.



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Catalan of this verb with and IO, though it is not possible to rule out with certainty that

they are cases of prepositional accusatives.

It is also necessary to underline the distinction of regime found in Italian between

rubare (a qualcuno qualcosa) and derubare (qualcuno di qualcosa), which also

presents variation in some degree.

In the opposed direction of the transfer of possession, we found the verb pagar

‘pay’, with the same pattern of syntactic variation detected in the previous cases. In

Catalan, the normative grammar distinguishes the use in which the accusative expresses

what is transferred (17) and the use in which the accusative refers to the person who

receives the transferred thing (18):

(17) a. Pagar el lloguer al propietari de la casa

b. Pagar els seus deutes

(18) Encara no han pagat els treballadors

And, even if it is not specified, it is clear that from (17a) it is possible to omit the

DO thus obtaining (19), which has to be compared with (18):

(19) Pagar al propietari de la casa

Ergo:

(20) Potser convindria cuidar-lo més. Ja el pagueu prou bé? (La Riera, telenovel·la de TV3)

(21) Com que li paguen molt bé, s’ha d’adaptar al que li diuen (Berguedà actual)

With respect to Spanish, the normative grammar states that pagar is transitive, but the

DPD points out the DO (the transferred thing) can be omitted and, consequently, it is possible to

reinterpret the complement of person as a DO (22), being this option described as little

advisable:

(22) Basta con que le aconseje la cocinera del Lenin, quien creo la pagaba bien

poco...

As for Italian we can observe that, when the transferred thing is not specified, the

complement of person can be as much IO (23) as DO (24), the latter construction being the

origin of passives like the one in (25):

(23) E ancora, non tutti gli ospedali hanno pagato ai medici anche gli arretrati

mentre molti hanno pagato solo gli aumenti legati al tabellare

(24) Il mondo dei servizi è oscuro e non saprei dire se i servizi italiani hanno

pagato i talebani – dice ancora il generale

(25) Gaspare Spatuzza è stato pagato dai magistrati



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Also in Basque there are cases of variation with those verbs of transfer of

possession. Starting for lapurtu ‘to steal’, whenever the thing stolen is not specified, we

find examples of encoding the complement of person in absolutive (26a), with the

existence of the corresponding passivization (26 b):

(26) a. 44 urtez lanean aritu eta kontuz ibili ondotik, etxe atarian lapurtu nau-te.

(Publicació electrònica Ttipi-ttapa) 44 year-instr work-art-ines act and care-instr go after, home door-ines steal aux:abs.1.sg-erg.3.pl

‘After 44 years of working and being careful, they have stolen me at the door of my home’

b. Baina lapurtua izan naiz. Dirua lapurtu di-da-te. Eta bizitza. (Relat premiat en un certamen d’Ermua)

but steal be aux:abs.1.sg money-art-abs steal aux:abs.3.sg-dat.1.sg-erg.3.pl and life-art-abs

‘But I have been stolen. They have stolen me the money. And my life.’

In general, however, the use of dative case (27a) predominates, which is explained

by the fact that this is an unergative verb in which, in absence of a canonical DO, the

absolutive reflects the nominal incorporated into the verb, as it proves the existence of

lapurreta egin ‘to make robbery, to make theft’ (27b):

(27) a. - Zure errua izan da! Zure erruagatik lapurtu di-da-te! (Blog, sinopsi d’una pel·lícula)

your fault-art-abs is aux:abs.3.sg your fault-caus steal aux:abs.3.sg-dat.1.sg-erg.3.pl

‘It has been your fault! They have stolen me because of you!’

b. Lapurreta egin d-io-te bikote bati Lapurdin (Berria) robbery make aux:abs.3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.3.pl couple a-dat Lapurdi-ines ‘They have commit robbery to a couple in Lapurdi’

However, the synonyms ebatsi ‘to steal, to take off’ and ostu ‘to steal’, perhaps

because they are used less frequently, do not seem to undergo the variation towards the

use of the absolutive to designate the victim of the robbery.

On the other hand, the verbs ordaindu ‘to pay’ and pagatu ‘to pay’ do enter the

case alternation, which means that the complement of person can be marked with dative

(28) as well as with accusative (29):

(28) a. Autotxoketan lan egiten nuen, baina nagusia arrazista zen, ez zi-Ø-dan ordaindu

nahi. Orain gustora nago. [...] Ondo ordaintzen di-da-te, 5.000 pezeta eguneko eta

ondo bizi naiz (publicació electrònica Habe Ikasbil) aux:erg.3.sg-abs.3.sg-dat.1.sg pay pay aux:abs.3.sg-dat.1.sg-erg

‘I used to work in the bumper cars, but he was very racist, he did not want to pay meDAT. Now I am at ease. [...] They pay meDAT well, 5.000 pesetas per day and I live well’



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b. 2ire familian anaia gaztea janari azkarreko jatetxe batean hasi zen lanean, oso gutxi

pagatzen z-Ø-io-te-n hilabetean (relat premiat en un concurs escolar de Navarra) pay aux:erg.3.pl-abs.3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.3.pl-pas

‘In my family the younger brother started to work in a fast food restaurant, they paid himDAT very little a month’

(29) - 2ork pagatzen zaitu-Ø gure eskolan lan egiten duzularik?

- Euskal Haziak-ek pagatzen du-Ø GAIA elkartea eta berak pagatzen nau-Ø.

(Electronic publication Euskal Haziak) pay aux:abs.2.sg-erg.3.sg pay aux:abs.3.sg-erg.3.sg pay aux:abs.1.sg-erg.3.sg ‘Who pays youAC while you work at our school’ ‘The Euskal Haziak [an association that promotes the bilingualism in the Catholic education in France] pays the association GAIA and the latter pays meAC’



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2. PROPOSAL OF FORMAL A�ALYSIS

Theoretical framework: (neo-)constructionism (Distributed Morphology; Halle & Marantz

1993, Marantz 1997, Harley & Noyer 1998,1999, Pylkkänen 2002, Cuervo 2003).

The differences between the alternate variants are not located at all in the lexical

component (as the lexicalist or projectionist approaches would suggest) but in the syntactic one.

The flexibility of the predicates to appear in different syntactic and structural contexts

(ditransitive construction, intransitive, monotransitive) follows from the combination of a very

impoverished lexical entry (which does not decide at all the syntax of that lexical element) and

the assumption that the meaning derives from the syntactic structure.

In the three types of constructions the verb that can be inserted is the same lexical item;

there is not a different item for each possible structure (robar1, robar2, etc), as one could gather

from a lexicalist approach.

Natural languages have a series of structural combinations that are materialized or

lexically expressed by lexical items like robar or telefonar. Therefore, roots like ROB- or

TELEFON- are concrete ways to make what is generically conveyed by each of the syntactic

configurations allowed by the grammar.

Global meaning = structural meaning + conceptual meaning, root meaning

Next we present the analysis of the following constructions:

(30) a. X verb Y to Z (ditransitive construction) b. X verb to Z (intransitive construction) c. X verb Z (monotransitive construction)



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2.1. Analysis of the ditransitive construction X verb Y to Z

(31)

� Transfer of possession (information, loop)

�

Dative functional projection ≈ preposition of destination (li or Ø)8

� Dative case marker a in the DP el Joan by agreement with the Destination

head

� Voice = full verb: it licenses an agent subject (la Maria) and checks the

accusative case (la cartera, l’hora del teatre)

�Destination equivalent to the Applicative head � Pylkkänen (2002) proposes

that dative arguments are not arguments of the verb but “extra” arguments licensed by

an Applicative head, which is responsible for projecting a DP in its specifier (el Joan)

and relating it with the structure that takes as a complement. (As for Spanish datives,

see Masullo 1992, Demonte 1995 and Cuervo 2003)

In short, we are inspired by the theory of applicative strategies but we differ in

considering that ditransitive constructions (having or not clitic doubling) have a

functional head (Destination) comparable to the (low) Applicative. Precisely, in the case

of Spanish, the above mentioned authors consider that when there is not clitic we have

8 The notion of clitic with prepositional value is intuitively very clear in those Romance languages having adverbial pronouns, like Catalan: Has telefonat a l’empresa? Sí, hi he telefonat.



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another type of construction, while we consider that it is the same structure with the sole

difference that the Applicative node (or Destination) has syntactic but not phonological

features.

�robar OD (loop) + SP de (victim of the robbery): directionality → external to

the verb, lexicalized through a PP (or a functional projection of Origin) which acts as

an adjunct of a prototypical monotransitive construction and, in accordance with the

directionality of the transfer of possession (origin), is headed by de or from.



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2.2. Analysis of the intransitive construction X verb to Z

(32)

�Without transfer of possession: ‘to make the state expressed by the root (in phone

call, in (dis)possession, etc) go towards (to) and in someone’.9

�Functional projection with 2 features: Destination (li or Ø) and Location (a; or en if

it is a place)

�Evidence of the existence of both properties � doublet (33)-(34) in Catalan,

locative clitic hi:

(33) A. Han robat a la Maria → Li han robat (a la Maria) b. Han robado a María → Le han robado (a María)

(34) A. Han robat a l’empresa de mudances → Hi han robat (*a l’empresa) b. Han robado a la empresa de mudanzas → Ø han robado

It is clear that a is not a case marker but it denotes place, since it is possible to

have (34a), where, being inanimate the victim of the robbery, there is the prototipically

locative clitic in Catalan:10

9 In addition, this structure accounts for the variant with preposition of the alternation respondre/contestar

{a/Ø} una carta, in which case the structural meaning will be concreted as: ‘to make that the state expressed by the root (in answer) goes towards (to) and in something (the letter)’. 10 There exists the possibility of personifying the locative through the use of a plural dative (i), being this personification nearly obligatory in the ditransitive construction (ii): (i) a. ¿Han robat a l’empresa? 2o, no elsDAT han pas robat b. ¿Ja has telefonat a l’empresa? 2o, encara no elsDAT he telefonat (ii) a. ¿Han robat els diners a l’empresa? *

/?2o, no hiLOC han robat els diners /

2o, no elsDAT han robat els diner

b. ¿Has telefonat l’hora de la conferència al departament? *2o,després l’hiLOC trucaré /



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�Two possibilities in Basque: incorporated (35a) or non incorporated (35b)

nominal:

(35) a. Telefonoz deitzen d-io-t phone-instr call aux:abs.3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.1.sg

‘I call himDAT (by phone)’ b. Telefonoz dei egin d-io-t

phone-instr call make aux:abs.3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.1.sg

‘I make a call to him by phone, I make himDAT a call by phone’

�Also in the Romance area: Catalan fer un truc = trucar, pegar un toc = tocar;

Portuguese fazer um telefonema = telefonar, etc.

Abundance in Middle Catalan: fer rauberies, fer roberia, fer robo, fer ladronici,

fer ladrunissi, fer furt, fer furts, fer rapina and fer rapines (CICA):

(36) Si alcun se clama d’altre que li aja feta roberia o forsa, o donat alcun don

(13th (b) century, Costums de Tortosa, pg, 327, line 17)

�Two ways of encoding direction or destination (Rooryck 1996, Svenonious

2007):

(i) semantically: it can be considered part of the inherent meaning of a lexical

element.

(ii) grammatically: a lexical element acquires the feature through the course of a

syntactic derivation (by conflating with a functional head possessing a directional value)

� French lost the grammatical strategy for encoding direction � change of

valence (dative → accusative) in aider-type adirectional verbs: they had no way of

licensing the dative case (neither lexical directionality nor a functional head of direction

or destination, the later being invisible to francophone people since the beginning of the

16th century) (Troberg 2008)

�Equivalences to our proposal: Middle French (Troberg 2008:213-215) (37),

decomposition of prepositions in Spanish (Fábregas 2007):

(37)

2o, després els la trucaré

It is worth noting that, in addition, these facts justify the inexistence of a functional projection of Location in the structures in section 2.1.



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2.3. Analysis of the monotransitive construction X verb Z

(38)

�Functional projection of Location

�Absence of directionality. This structure expresses a change of place,

specifically a change of state: ‘to make someone be in (contact with) phone call /

(dis)possession’.11

�Accus. (el senyor Martí) checked by agreement by the full verb (Voice) as in (31)

�Nominalizations (CICA, Pineda 2010a)

X roba / furta Y to Z (section 2.1): de (39)

X roba Z (section 2.3): de (40)

X roba / furta to Z (section 2.2): a (41)

(39) a. Ladronici o furt ne roberia no·s pot fer sinó de coses mobles (Costums de

Tortosa, pg. 299, line 17) (13th century, part b) b. E açò perquè fo acusat de furt d’una mora e d’un moratel que foren furtatz e

perdutz en la orta de Cocentània (Llibre de Cort de Justícia de Cocentaina I (1269-1290), pg. 136, line 35) (13th century, part b)

(40) a. Furt de casa de Constantin Cernesio (Dietari, fol. 254r, line 1) (14th century, part a)

b. dia en què sosoí lo any 1745 lo robo de la església (Memòries d'un capellà del

segle XVIII, pg. 182, line 239) (18th century, part a) (41) a. és tengut en acció de furt a aquel qui·ls hi à comanatz o mès... (Costums de

Tortosa, pg. 227, line 10) (13th century, part b) b. E a ·çò ·ns ha dat causa e leer lo poch castich de tals hòmens, e no·s fa per àls

sinó que aquells, qui en los furts e actes destructius han cabut e donat consell,

favor e ajuda, no són revelats. E [a] [fi] que·ls furts e rapines fetes a la pobre de

ciutat no sien repetides dels ladres detentors de aquelles (Epistolari de la

València Medieval_II (1/4), letter 8, line 17) (15th century, part a)

11 This structure corresponds to the variant without preposition of the alternation respondre/contestar {a/Ø} una carta, in which case the structural meaning will be concreted as ‘to make a letter be in answer’.



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�Constructions robar alguna entitat d’alguna cosa (Middle Catalan)12, derubare

qualcuno di qualcosa (Italian), to rob someone of something (English): structure in (38)

+ an adjunct prepositional element indicating the transferred thing (maybe also pagar

(alguna cosa) en espècies, pagar (alguna cosa) en or, pagar (alguna cosa) amb la

mateixa moneda).

�This proves the parallel drawn between X robar Z of Y --- X robar Y to Z

(construction analyzed in section 2.1) and the prototypical locative alternation (X

carregar ‘load’ Y of Z, matched with X carregar Z to Y).

�Also in Basque (Eastern area) � complement of person in absolutive

According to what Etxepare (2010) corroborates when he studies the existence of

non-agreeing datives in North-Eastern varieties of Basque:

Applicative strategy (42)

▪ agreeing dative

▪ all varieties

Adposicional form (43)

▪ reinterpretation of French à as directional

▪ non-agreeing dative

▪ North-Eastern varieties

(42) Amak semeari opari bat igorri d-io-Ø

mother-det-erg son-det-dat present a-abs send aux:abs.3.sg-dat.3.sg-erg.3.sg. ‘Mother has sent a present to his son’

(43) Amak opari bat igorri du-Ø semeari

mother-det-erg present un-abs send aux:abs.3.sg-erg.3.sg. son-det-dat ‘Mother has sent a present to his son’

Parameter which distinguish �orth-Eastern dialects (or Eastern dialects) from

Central and Western dialects

«The lexical inventory of North-Eastern Datives contains a lexical entry

for the feature [dPath] (directional Path)» (Etxepare 2010)

Thus, leaving aside the applicative strategy shared by all varieties (used in

predicates expressing transfer of possession (31)), in this area of Basque the dative case

is somehow associated to a directional Path («silent Path head», «silent direccional

adposition», functional projection of Direction).

12 An example of this construction: robaren aq[ue]ll d'armes, d[e] robes, d'arneses a lur vole[n]tat enb sí se n'amenaren los dits moros e l[e]s m[er]caderies d'aq[ue]lls, axí com a nós l[e]s coses damu[n]t dites só Carta d'Arnau d'Erill al rei de Granada, pg. 203, line 24) (CICA).



16

In these varieties, this functional head «spreads across the verbal structure

occupying all those places where direccional Path is compositionally allowed»

(Etxepare 2010).

These varieties only associate deitu ‘to phone’ with the structural meaning

in (38) ‘to make someone be (in contact) with the state expressed by the roots’,

in which there is no directional element at all and, as a consequence, licensing a

dative case is not allowed

3. CO�CLUSIO�S

► Verbs of transfer of possession and verbs of communicative transfer

� compl. of person in dative

different syntactic configurations

� compl. of person in accusative

(slightly) different meanings

� ‘to make the state expressed by the root (in phone call, in (dis)possession, etc) go towards (to) and in someone’

but pragmatically equivalent

‘to make someone be in (contact with) the state expressed by the root’

Future research: verbs of violent contact (pegar ‘to hit’, colpejar ‘to beat’, picar

‘to hit’), verbs of contact in the distance (disparar ‘to shoot’, apuntar ‘to aim’) and

verbs of communicative contact (contactar ‘to contact’).



17

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different structures, convergent interpretations. · alumno recibió una llamada por teléfono....

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