The Dative Alternation. Investigating Grammatical Variation

Project Report from the year 2019 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, language: English, abstract: The phenomenon under investigation was the dative alternation, i.e. the factors influencing the choice between the NP/noun phrase dative ("I give him the book") and the PP/prepositional phrase dative ("I give the book to him"). It is generally assumed, that factors holding an influence over the dative choice are, among others, the syntactic complexity/length of the indirect object and the verbs used.

In order to find out which factor is more influential in the choice, both factors were considered in the study. Some verbs, like give, promise, lend and mail, have a tendency towards the usage with the NP dative - that means that they would not be used with the PP dative, and this would thus mean that the NP dative would be used more often when these verbs occur - if the verb choice influences the dative form more than the syntactic complexity, that is.