Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

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The applicative-prepositional distinction is a syntactic one. It is neutralized in
Romance morphology, where both types of datives use the same clitics and àphrases.
It is also invisible to morphological processes, as discussed for opaque
cliticization in chapter 2. Yet it conditions the PCC and its repair. Thus, they refer
to syntactic primitives, confirming their syntactic character.
The story may begin with possessor datives, (163). They can be clitics but
usually not à-phrases, and cannot undergo the PCC repair by strong pronoun or y.
(163) ¥ a. On leur a jeté Paul dans les bras(, à ces filles).
b. *On a jeté Paul dans les bras à ces filles.
one them.D has thrown Paul into the arms to these girls
One threw Paul into their(, the girls',) arms / *the arms of the girls.
c. *On me leur a jeté dans les bras.
d. *On m' a jeté dans les bras à elles / ces filles.
e. *On m' y a jeté dans les bras.
one me.A them.D / LOC has thrown into the arms to them / these girls
One threw me into their/the girls' arms.
(possessor; Couquaux 1975: 58, 60, cf. Postal 1990: 140-2, 154)
Couquaux (1975: 58-61) introduces this paradigm. He correlates the general
restriction of possessor datives to clitics, and their specific unavailability to the
PCC repairs. Both are reduces to Kayne's (1975: 2.14) suggestion that possessor
datives must appear in an analogue of the English double object (applicative) construction.
Couquaux's proposal furnishes the key to understanding which datives
may undergo the PCC repair. Work in Romance and cross-linguistically has confirmed
that possessor datives must appear in the applicative construction. It has
also given a plausible explanation. The possessor raises out of or binds into the
possessum. It must therefore c-command the possessum, and cannot be embedded
inside a regular PP (Landau 1999, Pylkkänen 2002: 43-57, Cuervo 2003a; Kayne
1975: 2.14, Couquaux 1975: 60). Couquaux's hypothesis about the PCC repair is
that it turns datives into locative PPs, structurally analogous to the prepositional
datives of (132)a. Thus it cannot affect possessors (cf. Albizu 1997b). A
generalization of this proposal is (164).
(164) The PCC repair can only affect datives that can occur in the prepositional
construction, not those that must be in the applicative construction.
(164) correlates the applicative status of a dative and its inability to undergo
the PCC repair. Unlike Couquaux's proposal, it does not correlate applicativity and
cliticization. Some applicative datives like the possessor in (163) must indeed cliticize
in French, but not all, unlike what Cuervo (2003ab) shows for Spanish. Yet
even those purely applicative datives that can be (non-clitic-doubled) à-phrases
and à + strong pronouns resist the PCC repair. The repair refers to the applicativeprepositional
distinction directly; constraints à-phrases only indirectly.