Thedatives

Thedatives are a proposed class of grammatical markers used in linguistic theory to encode the recipient or beneficiary role of a ditransitive event together with an additional speaker-oriented stance, such as deontic or evidential meaning. The term appears in some discussions as an extension or refinement of the dative case, aiming to capture how a language can signal not only who receives an action but also how the speaker relates to that recipient.

Morphology and distribution are variable in descriptions of thedatives. They may be realized as suffixes attached to the recipient noun phrase, enclitics or particles attached to the verb, or separate prepositional elements. In languages with multiple layers of marking, thedatives can co-occur with a standard dative or replace it in certain contexts, often depending on the verb class or discourse setting. The exact form and position of thedative marker can differ across proposed or experimental languages.

Semantically, the core function is recipient identification, but with an added pragmatic dimension. Thedatives are argued to encode speaker-oriented information such as obligation, permission, or the right of the recipient to receive or benefit from the action, or to express certainty about the recipient’s status. This makes thedatives a tool for marking not only participant roles but also the speaker’s attitude toward those roles.

Attestation and debates: Thedatives are not widely attested in established natural languages and are primarily discussed as a theoretical construct or within discussions of constructed languages and experimental grammars. Some linguists see them as a useful analytic category for multifunctional ditransitives; others argue the concept overlaps with existing categories like dative, benefactive, and mood or evidential markers.

See also: Dative case, Benefactive, Evidentiality, Deontic mood.