Syntactic Distribution of the Semantic Classes of Dative Verbs in English and Cantonese: A Crosslinguistic Perspective

Syntactic Distribution of the Semantic Classes of Dative Verbs in English and Cantonese: A Crosslinguistic Perspective Ziying Li Hanjung Lee Sungkyunkwan University / 25-2 Sungkyunkwan University / 25-2 Sungkyunkwan-ro, Jongro-gu, Seoul 03063, Sungkyunkwan-ro, Jongro-gu, Seoul 03063, Republic of Korea Republic of Korea Lydialzy12138@gmail.com hanjung@skku.edu Abstract This paper examines the distribution of the semantic classes of dative verbs in syntactic constructions, focusing on data from English and Cantonese. While both languages have two dative constructions, the prepositional dative construction (PDC) and the double object construction (DOC), they differ as to the extent they extend these constructions to major dative verb classes. This paper proposes a unifying analysis of the syntactic distribution of the semantic classes of dative verbs in English and Cantonese. On the basis of a closer examination of semantic properties of dative verbs and constructions in the two languages, we argue that verb distribution in these languages can be accounted for in a unified way by general constraints on semantic compatibilities between verbs and constructions and the choice of cut-off points on an implicational hierarchy of ditransitive verbs. 1 Introduction Dative verbs−verbs that take agent, recipient, and theme arguments−have received considerable attention in recent years from various theoretical and empirical perspectives. Previous studies of these verbs have made significant contribution to the study of the nature of verb meaning, constructional meaning and the relation between these two (Pinker 1989, Goldberg 1997, Harley 2002, Krifka 2004, Levin 2004, Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2008, Bruening 2010, Lee 2020). This paper examines the syntactic distribution of major semantic classes of dative verbs in English and Cantonese, and explores its implications for the study of crosslinguistic variation in verb distribution in ditransitive constructions. Dative verbs in English such as give, send and throw allow both argument realization options, as is illustrated with give in (1). (1) a. Ann gave Beth the key. (DOC) b. Ann gave the key to Beth. (PDC) English is in sharp contrast to Cantonese, a language in which the DOC is lexically restricted to the verb bei2 meaning ‘give’. While all Cantonese dative verbs may be found in the PDC where bei2 functions as a dative marker, only the verb bei2 ‘give’ may also be found in the DOC, as in (2) (Xu & Peyraube 1997, Tang 1998, Chan 2003, 2010, Chin 2010, 2011, among others).1 (2) a. Ngo5 bei2 zo2 jat1 zi1 bat1 keoi5(DOC). I give Perf one Cl pen 3sg ‘I gave her/him a pen.’ b. ??Ngo5 bei2 zo2 jat1 zi1 bat1 bei2 keoi5. (PDC) I give Perf one Cl pen Dat 3sg ‘I gave a pen to her/him.’ The verb bei2 contrasts with other give-type verbs such as sung3 ‘give (as a present)’ and zoeng2 ‘award’ as well as verbs of sending and throwing, which are found in the PDC only, as shown in (3) and (4). 1 In this paper, Cantonese examples are transcribed orthographically in the JyutPing romanization system developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. Tones are marked numerically (1: high level, …

Content truncated to 500 words