DOUBLE OBJECT CONSTRUCTIONS AND DATIVE/ACCUSATIVE ALTERNATIONS IN SPANISH AND CATALAN: A UNIFIED ACCOUNT.

The goal of this paper is to present a unified analysis of both ditransitive constructions and transitivity alternations (i.e. dative/accusative alternations) in Spanish and Catalan. Regarding the first of these two phenomena, and more concretely the purported existence in these languages of something comparable to the dative alternation seen in English, we will show the weaknesses of what we consider an analysis that seeks to find phenomena proper to English reflected exactly in Romance languages. Thus, we will refute the hypothesis defended by several authors (Masullo 1992, Demonte 1995, Romero 1997, Cuervo 2003a,b) according to which Spanish ditransitive constructions with dative clitic doubling correspond to double object constructions (DOC), whereas non-doubled constructions correspond to the so-called prepositional constructions (PC), or to-dative, in English. Basing on the careful and exhaustive examination of the data in Pineda (2013a,b), we will argue that Spanish (and Catalan) ditransitive constructions instantiate DOC, whether they bear clitic doubling or not. An analysis of pronominalization in Catalan, a language which preserves prepositional clitics, will support this view, which is based on the postulation of an affectedness/possession relation. As for the second phenomenon under study, the existence of true case alternations in Spanish, it will be argued that we are dealing here with a kind of variation constrained by the same relation (or a version of it) as that which acts in the realm of ditransitive predicates. Again, Catalan data will prove indispensable for our analysis. Crucially, we will show that what lies behind Spanish and Catalan dative/accusative alternation is an instance of Differential Indirect Object Marking (DIOM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]