Ditransitive Alternations in Lancashire Variety of Northwest British English

Abstract

This paper discusses the Theme-Goal ditransitive construction in Lancashire variety of Northwest British English in comparison with the Double Object construction and the Prepositional Dative construction of all varieties of English. Animacy constraints and verb class restrictions show that the Lancashire Theme-Goal ditransitive is an alternative variant of the Double Object construction which has an applicative structure with caused possession semantics. The paper argues against rightward Goal-shift analyses in favor of a short Theme object shift analysis in deriving the Theme-Goal ditransitive construction from the underlying Double Object structure.