Dative shift

In linguistics, dative shift refers to a pattern in which the subcategorization of a verb can take on two alternating forms, the oblique dative form or the double object construction form. In the oblique dative (OD) form, the verb takes a noun phrase (NP) and a dative prepositional phrase (PP), the second of which is not a core argument.

(1) John gave [NP a book ] [PP.DATIVE to Mary ].

In the double object construction (DOC) form the verb takes two noun phrases, both of which are core arguments, with the dative argument preceding the other argument.

(2) John gave [NP.DATIVE Mary ] [NP a book ].
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.