dativestructured

Dativestructured is a term used in linguistics to describe how languages organize the dative argument, typically the recipient or beneficiary, within a clause. The concept encompasses morphological marking of the dative as well as the syntactic placement of the recipient in ditransitive sentences.

In ditransitives, there are two core participants: a direct object (the theme) and an indirect object (the recipient or beneficiary). Some languages encode the indirect object with a dative case, others use a preposition such as to or for. English, for example, commonly alternates between a double-object construction (John gave Mary a book) and a prepositional dative (John gave a book to Mary), a phenomenon known as dative alternation or dative shift.

Cross-linguistically, dative structuring varies. German marks the indirect object with a dative case irrespective of word order, while other languages rely more on prepositions, postpositions, or word order to signal the recipient. Some languages permit both prepositional and double-object forms, with specific restrictions related to animacy, verb semantics, or discourse focus. The choice between structures can influence emphasis, recipient identification, and information packaging in a sentence.

Typologically, dative structuring reflects broader patterns of valency, case marking, and argument licensing. Morphology may encode the dative, syntax may determine the preferred construction, and semantics may constrain which participants can assume a dative role.

Dativestructured concepts are relevant in linguistic theory, language acquisition, and natural language processing, where understanding how recipients are encoded affects parsing, translation, and sentence planning. See also ditransitive construction, dative case, prepositional dative, and dative shift.