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1.3.1.Dative/PP alternations (dative shift)
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This section discusses several types of dative/PP alternations, i.e. cases in which a dative noun phrase alternates with a PP with a similar semantic function. We will distinguish five different subcases depending on the semantic interpretation of the indirect object: the examples in (331) show that recipient objects alternate with aan-PPs, goal objects with naar-PPs, sources with PPs headed by van (although there are also cases with aan), possessor objects with bij-PPs, and benefactive objects with voor-PPs.

331
a. Marie heeft <Peter> een boek <aan Peter> gegeven.
recipient
  Marie has Peter a book to Peter given
b. Marie gooide <Peter> de bal <naar Peter> toe.
goal
  Marie threw Peter the ball to Peter toe
c. Marie pakte <Peter> de bal <van Peter> af.
source
  Marie took Peter the ball from Peter prt.
d. Marie zette <Peter> de baby <bij Peter> op schoot.
possessor
  Marie put Peter the baby with Peter on the.lap
e. Marie schonk <Peter> een borrel <voor Peter> in.
benefactive
  Marie poured Peter a drink for Peter prt.

So-called ethical datives such as me in Hij dronk (me) een grote hoeveelheid bierHe drank an amazing amount of beer will not be discussed here, as they do not enter into this type of alternation. These also differ from the dative phrases in (331) in that (i) they are usually a first, singular pronoun; (ii) they provide a subjective evaluation of the speaker; and (iii) most importantly, they can be easily combined with other types of dative phrases. Two examples of the latter property are given in (332a&b); cf. also Bos (1972), in which it is also noted that ethical datives differ from other dative phrases in that they cannot occur in nominalizations such as (332c). The primed examples further show that an ethical dative does not normally occur in sentence-initial position, regardless of whether it is phonetically reduced or not.

332
a. Hij geeft mij de kinderen te veel zakgeld.
  he gives me the children too much pocket.money
  'He is giving the children too much pocket money in my view.'
a'. * Mij geeft hij de kinderen te veel zakgeld.
b. Hij gaf me Peter toch een klap op de schouder!
  he gave me Peter prt a blow on the shoulder
  'He gave Peter an extremely hard blow on the shoulder.'
b'. * Me gaf hij Peter toch een klap op de schouder.
c. Hij dronk me een grote hoeveelheid bier.
  he drank me a large quantity [of] beer
  'He drank an amazing quantity of beer.'
c'. * [Me een grote hoeveelheid bier drinken] is ongezond.
  me a large quantity [of] beer drink is unhealthy

Since the PPs in (331) are often referred to as the periphrastic form of the nominal indirect object, we will make a terminological distinction between double object constructions, in which the relevant participant is syntactically expressed by a dative noun phrase, and periphrastic indirect-object constructions, in which it is expressed by a PP. By adopting this terminology, we do not intend to commit ourselves to the claim that the periphrastic indirect objects are PP-complements of the verb: indeed, we will see that there are reasons to assume that in many cases they function instead as complementives, i.e. predicatively used spatial PPs. We will discuss the various subtypes of dative/PP alternation in the order given in (331).

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