Indexicality across the boundaries of syntax, semantics and pragmatics

Abstract

In Danish, indirect object (IO) constructions fall into two main classes: (1) the three-argument valence-governed pattern and (2) the free indirect object construction. The free IO is a constructional extension to certain types of monotransitive constructions and verbs; by contrast, the valence-governed IO is a manifestation of the third argument of three-place verb stems in (prototypically) transfer constructions. The free indirect object (free IO) in Modern Danish presents an intricate problem, calling for concepts and solutions not normally connected with constructional syntax. Its frequency is extremely low, and intuitions about its acceptability vary according to basic speech act type. In assertive contexts, it comes across as old-fashioned and is hardly productive; in regulative contexts, by contrast, it retains full productivity. The few positive results yielded by a corpus search are almost exclusively examples of free IOs in regulative contexts. Indexicality, as used especially in morphology by Henning Andersen and Raimo Anttila, is the key concept of our analysis. An IO np must identify its argument by pointing indexically to some aspect of the predicate’s semantics, but since – in the case of free IOs – there is no third argument A3 in the verb’s valence schema, there is apparently nothing for the free IO to index. In special cases, however, most importantly in regulative contexts, the free IO finds an alternative indicatum by pointing to features of the performative situation. Our findings indicate the need for a grammatical theory that allows syntactic rules to be not only semantically, but also pragmatically sensitive.