Blocking effects in the double object construction

Abstract

In this paper we examine the contrast between the morph-syntactic properties of the two objects in the double object construction and prepositional dative construction. The intriguing properties of the indirect object in the double object construction (DOC) are explained by hypothesizing that (i) the English morphological poverty of case marking on objects has Blocking effects on A’ movements of the two objects in the DOC and (ii) blocking A’ movement of the two objects in the DOC vs. non-blocking A’ movement of the two objects in the prepositional dative construction have to do with neutralisation of meaning of the two dative constructions.

Keywords

• double object construction
• English
• blocking effects
• neutralisation of meaning