The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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Appendix: On some differences between the Hebrew and English Dative Shift
I. The starting point
In the Hebrew Dative construction, the argument that occurs adjacent to the verb,
whether Theme or Goal, can bind the other one (A.1) (Borer and Grodzinsky (1986)). I
take this to indicate that Hebrew, like English, has a syntactic Dative Shift (DS) (see
also Landau 1994). 51
(A.1) a. dan her’a et ha-tinoket le-acma
Dan showed Acc the-baby to-herself
“Dan showed the baby to herself.”
b. dan her’a la-tinoket et acma (ba-mar’a)
Dan showed to+the-baby Acc herself (in+the-mirror)
“Dan showed the baby herself (in the mirror).”
Given this, the goal of this discussion is to account for the following differences
between the Hebrew and English DS:
(i)
(ii)
It is a well-known fact that in the DS in English the Dative preposition to
is dropped. In the Hebrew DS le- does not disappear (A.1b).
It is possible to passivize the Goal argument in the English shifted
construction, but in Hebrew the only argument that can undergo
passivization is the Theme argument, regardless of the DS.
In what follows I will account for (i) and (ii) showing that both stem from the
(different) status of the Dative P-morpheme in the two languages. But prior to that, let
me set up my background assumptions.
II. Background assumptions
As is well known, the DS phenomenon exists in some languages (e.g. English), but
51 I am abstracting away from the question whether the hierarchical shift between the relevant arguments
(i.e. DS) is a result of movement (from the same Merge, in accordance with Baker’s UTAH, Baker 1988),
or rather a reflection of two different base generations (from two distinct numerations).