The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

167
not in other (e.g. French). It has been proposed by Kayne (1984) that the availability of
a phonetically null Dative P and the existence of the DS are closely related. More
specifically, the DS is assumed to be a Case related phenomenon, attested only in
languages where the Dative P can be phonetically null (see also Baker (1988), (1997),
Larson (1988a), and Den Dikken (1995)). 52
Following this tradition and based on the discussion in this chapter, and in chapter
3, I assume that the DS occurs when there is no Dative P in the syntactic structure (or
numeration). More specifically, Dative Case of a DP can be checked either by the
Dative P, or it has to be checked by the verb. The latter induces the DS.
With this in mind, let us examine first the DS in English.
III. The DS scenario for English
A Dative triadic verb such as give has two internal arguments. In the Dative
construction the Case of the Theme argument is checked by the verb, and that of the
Goal by the Dative P to. The later is realized as a PP, since, as discussed in this chapter,
the Dative P-morpheme to has the status of an independent syntactic P-head projecting a
PP.
When the Dative P is absent, the Case of the nominal has to be checked by the
appropriate head. Adapting the proposal in Den Dikken (1995), I assume that the
relevant head is the abstract verb BE located within the VP-shell (A.2). Thus, in the DS
in English the Goal DP moves into the specifier of the projection headed by BE to
check its Case feature. (The resulting construction is labeled the Double Object
construction (DOC)): 53
52 Kayne (2001) propose that the possibility not to realize the Dative P-morpheme in a given language
depends, at least partially, on the richness of the semantic content associated with the Dative P-
morpheme. The relevant contrast is between the English to on the one hand, and the French à on the
other. The former is compatible mainly with directional and transfer meanings, whereas the latter, in
addition, conveys the locative meaning (‘at’), and therefore cannot be omitted.
53 For additional possible implementations see Larson 1988a, Ura 1996, Baker 1997, among many others.