In this article, we reply to the objections raised against a connection between double object constructions (DOCs) and to-constructions and present new arguments showing the empirical and theoretical advantages of derivational analyses over nonderivational ones. We argue that to-constructions and DOCs share a common substructure—where the theme is higher than the goal—that construction-based analyses fail to capture, both crosslinguistically and English-internally. We also argue that variation in the lexical properties of verbs and adpositions is the right tool to account for the alternation.

In this paper we present an approach to agreement where different agreement processes occur at different levels. We argue that phi-feature valuation is never the trigger of a checking relation between a head H and an NP, but the effect of a syntactic relation that must be triggered by some independent operation. We analyze in detail characteristic cases where agreement is not syntactic but induced in the morphological component or in processing. We also show that all these cases are indirectly determined by syntactic derivations where the phi-feature matrix in the head H is not fully specified, leaving room for additional, extra-syntactic, operations to tamper with agreement.

Lan honen xedea euskarazko AS-barneko argumentuen arteko oinarrizko hierarkia orain arte helburu horrekin erabili ez diren testuinguru sintaktiko batzuen bidez argitzen laguntzea da. Horretarako, ageriko komunztadurarik gabeko egitura desberdinak identifikatzen ditut —TZE nominalizazio eta partizipio egitura desberdinez gain, osagai koordinatuak eta aginterazkoak, aditz aspektual eta modalen zenbait testuinguru— eta perpaus jokatuen jokaerarekin erkatzen. Euskal Prosa Gaur (EPG) corpuseko elkarkarien analisi sistematikoak erakusten du hierarkia alderantzizkoa dela bi egitura motetan, eta iraulketa hori bakar-bakarrik sintaxi mailako eragiketa baten ondorioa izan daitekeela. Hurrenkeraz gain, ikus dezakegu egitura hauetan guztietan komunztadura ez agertzea ez dela “hutsune” morfologiko bat, komunztadurari dagokion prozesu sintaktikoaren faltaren sintoma eta ondorioa baizik. Hala bada, komunztadura eta kasu erkaketa zeharo prozesu autonomoak behar dute izan, komunztadura erlaziorik ez dagoenean kasu erkatzearen iturria komunztadura ez beste leku batean bilatu behar dugunez.

Most analyses of nonparadigmatic SE sentences derive their agreement patterns structurally, forcing a passive/impersonal distinction against all evidence. Instead, we uniformly analyze them as regular sentences where the T-agreeing subject is se itself, an argumental clitic pronoun, with [person] but no number phi-features, and show that the overt argument, which has object properties, does not genuinely agree in syntax. We reveal a new asymmetry between postverbal and preverbal/null arguments, which conceals two postsyntactic processes with very distinctive properties: morphological Clitic Mutation into number agreement, and T's Number Harmony with a close DP, not ruled by syntax or morphology.

In this article, following Ormazabal & Romero (2022) insights, a modular approach to agreement variation is proposed where syntactic relations are uniform, dialectal variation is determined in morphology, and extragrammatical modules deal with sociolinguistic variation. While dialectal variation is systematic, dependent on hierarchical relations, and occurs within linguistic communities; sociolinguistic agreement variation is arbitrary, linearly determined, and subject to socioeconomic and educational pressures.

Following Oca (1914), this article argues that passive and impersonal se constructions in Spanish are regular transitive constructions where the pronominal clitic seis the argumental subject. Several arguments (secondary predication, non-argumental predicates, control and obviation, anaphora binding, active morphology or its alignment with overt nominative pronouns, among others)show that (i)bothconstructions are active structures, (ii)despite what agreement facts might suggest, in both the internal argument of the verb is not the subject but the direct object throughout the derivation, (iii) se is the active nominative pronominal subject of the construction. We argue that the alleged ‘special’ properties of passive-se are not construction-specific but follow from the lexical specifications of se agreeing with Tense as a quirky subject.

This paper argues that there is nothing “differential” in the licensing conditions of Differential Object Marking and outlines an analysis that unifies dom with dative object marking and with a broader set of “derived object”-marking configurations. We show that neither morphological nor syntactic distinctiveness can be the driving force for dom: accounts of dom as a morphological distinctiveness device are inadequate diachronically and very unefficient functionally. Syntactic analyses that postulate DP-internal differences or construction-specific double-licensing conditions fail to capture the basic fact that dom is a relation between the objects and the predicates selecting them. Precisely, the burden of our unified explanation falls on the checking requirements imposed to the DP complements by the structural heads selecting them.

The properties and internal chronology of various dative changes in the history of the Lapurdian dialect of Basque are shown to be fully incompatible with the basic tenets of standard non-derivational approaches to dative alternations (both Phave and “Low Applicative projection” types), and support the presence of an underlying P in applicative constructions. A neo-derivational approach based on the incorporation of an adpositional head accounts naturally for important generalizations on the distribution of the changes and conforms to the properties of dative variation crosslinguistically.

En aquest article proposem una anàlisi asimètrica de la legitimació de cas en què, d’una banda, l’arquitectura funcional del sistema verbal només legitima, com a màxim, un SD, i, de l’altra, només un cert tipus de SD requereix una legitimació formal. La nostra proposta explica, sense complicacions addicionals, els problemes clàssics que afecten la sintaxi de les construccions amb Marcatge Diferenciat de l’Objecte (MDO) i amb elevació d’objecte, així com els efectes de la restricció de persona i cas, tant en espanyol com en altres llengües. També analitzem les conseqüències i els reptes que la nostra proposta planteja per explicar el comportament dels clítics en dialectes laïstes en contextos en què els dos arguments interns semblen legitimar-se de maneres formalment independents: un mitjançant el MDO i l’altre gràcies a un clític de datiu. En aquest sentit, demostrem que aquest clític datiu no estableix cap relació de concordança, sinó que és un determinant que s’incorpora, com passa amb els clítics acusatius de tercera persona (Ormazabal i Romero 2013a).

In this paper, we present empirical evidence showing that Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Spanish is determined by structural conditions related to Case and agreement. We also argue that semantic concepts such as specificity, definiteness, animacy, or topicality, tightly connected to the presence or absence of A, must be parasitic on the syntactic configurations where DOM is licensed. We also present some consequences of our analysis for the general theory of agreement. We argue that the same structural relation is involved in all cases of DOM, as well as in Dative Clitic Constructions, where the presence of the particle A preceding clitic-doubled datives is syntactically unified with DOM phenomena. The accusative/dative distinction traditionally attributed to the Spanish pronominal system does not correspond, in synchronic terms, to different case relations, but distinguishes between agreeing and non-agreeing arguments. Similarly, the distribution of DOM corresponds to a Case-checked/Caseless difference. We extend the analysis to account for well-known restrictions on the co-appearance of two DOM arguments, which are analyzed as the consequence of a competition between two arguments for a single target.

In this paper we propose an asymmetrical approach to Case-licensing where, on the one hand, the functional architecture in the verbal system can license at most one DP, and, on the other, only certain DPs require formal licensing. Our proposal straightforwardly explains long-lasting syntactic problems in the syntax of Spanish and other languages concerning Differential Object Marking (DOM), Raising to Subject asymmetries in se constructions, and Person Case Constraint effects. Then, we analyze the consequences and challenges of our proposal for the explanation of the clitic behavior in laista dialects in contexts where both internal arguments seem to be independently formally licensed, one of them via DOM, and the other by means of a dative clitic. We show that this dative clitic does not establish an agreement relation, but it is an incorporated determiner, as in the case of third person accusative clitics (Ormazabal and Romero 2013a).

This article presents an analysis of object clitics in Spanish and some of its consequences for the theory of agreement and Case. On the empirical side, we present syntactic, morphological and semantic arguments supporting a mixed approach to object clitics where 3rd person Direct Object (DO) cliticization constitutes a genuine case of Determiner movement, but other DO and Indirect Object (IO) clitics are agreement elements. Once third person object clitics are set aside, the emerging picture is a single agreement that does not discriminate between DOs and IOs in the syntax. This idea finds striking support in Basque Leista Dialect, where there is a 3rd person DO agreement clitic that behaves in all relevant respects like all other agreement clitics. Moreover, the consequences of this analysis extend to other properties of the object relation in Spanish, such as Differential Object Marking (DOM), and dialectal variation in the clitic field. An interesting observation that arises from this study is that the agreement nature of 1st and 2nd person clitics and the whole series of IOs is extremely robust in Spanish and remains invariable across all the dialects analyzed. Variation is thus restricted to 3rd person DO objects, where in contrast the changes are diverse and take very different directions, a fact that raises interesting questions related both to the historical evolution of the clitic system and to the theoretical analysis of Case and agreement.

Bresnan and Nikitina (2009) and Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2008) show that, contrary to standard assumptions, fixed-theme idioms may appear in to-constructions under certain pragmatic circumstances. Bruening (2010a) contends that the cases they present are in fact R(ightward)-dative shifts, double object constructions with the object projected to the right. In this article, we argue that Bruening’s proposed theoretical apparatus is unnecessarily complex and ad hoc and falls short of explaining the main facts it is supposed to deal with, massively overgenerating. A regular PP structure is argued to be empirically more adequate and conceptually simpler, avoiding the main problems of the R-dative shift analysis. New empirical evidence concerning pairlist readings and scope freezing also suggests that the empirical facts about idioms should be reconsidered in completely different terms.

This paper argues for an updated version of the classical derivational approach to Double Object Constructions and dative constructions across languages. We show that the arguments to postulate a non-derivational approach do not hold and that, in fact, such an approach runs into unsolvable problems. We argue that the structural alternation is triggered by Preposition (applicative) incorporation and Case/Agreement-relational considerations. We maintain a unified analysis of dative and PP constructions at the level of argument structure, while deriving the structural differences as a consequence of the incorporation of P and its modification of the Case requirements. Combined with a non-symmetric theory of Case, this approach yields the right results for most of the "mixed" properties traditionally associated to dative constructions.

This paper deals with the so-called Person Case Constraint (Bonet, E. 1991), a universal constraint blocking accusative clitics and object agreement morphemes other than third person when a dative is inserted in the same clitic/agreement cluster. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that the scope of the PCC is considerably broader than assumed in previous work, and that neither its formulation in terms of person (1st/2nd vs. 3rd)-case (accusative vs. dative) restrictions nor its morphological nature are part of the right descriptive generalization. We present evidence (i) that the PCC is triggered by the presence of an animacy feature in the object’s agreement set; (ii) that it is not case dependent, also showing up in languages that lack dative case; and (iii) that it is not morphologically bound. Second, we argue that the PCC, even if it is modified accordingly, still puts together two different properties of the agreement system that should be set apart: (i) a cross-linguistic sensitivity of object agreement to animacy and (ii) a similarly widespread restriction on multiple object agreement observed crosslinguistically. These properties lead us to propose a new generalization, the Object Agreement Constraint (OAC): if the verbal complex encodes object agreement, no other argument can be licensed through verbal agreement.

This paper is part of a more extensive project whose main topic is the role of Case-theory in the general design of the language faculty. The ultimate goal of this work would be to show that Case does not play the central role current linguistic theories attribute to it, and to derive its effects from other general conditions of the system. In this paper, we will focus on several phenomena that show, contrary to standard assumptions, that Case and Agreement-checking are independent processes. We will argue that Case-features are not the relevant trigger for overt agreement-inducing movement; in particular, in the cases we will analyze, we will show that verbal agreement is sensitive to some animacy feature of the attracted object. Case-marking will then be analyzed as a property of the morphological component, with no bearing on the issue of syntactic movement.