View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Yale University Yale University EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity Department of Linguistics Fall 10-2020 Notes on Extended Benefactives Jim Wood Yale University, [email protected] Shayley Martin Yale University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ygdp Part of the Syntax Commons Recommended Citation Wood, Jim and Shayley Martin. 2020. Notes on extended benefactives. Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity 2 (3): 1-11. https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ygdp/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Linguistics at EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity by an authorized administrator of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact [email protected].  Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1–11 2020 Research Article Notes on Extended Benefactives Jim Wood1 *, Shayley Martin2 Abstract Wood and Zanuttini (2018) have discussed data suggesting that low Appl(icative) phrases can occur as the complement of a preposition in some varieties of English. However, their claim was based on a limited data set that is potentially open to alternative analyses. This paper reports on judgment data collected by the second author of the present paper in January 2018 which go well beyond the examples discussed by Wood and Zanuttini (2018), and support their claim that a beneficiary and a DP can form a constituent inside a PP that excludes the PP and any verb it may be associated with. Keywords datives — benefactives — applicatives 1 Yale University 2 Yale University *Corresponding author: [email protected] 1. Introduction Benefactive constructions standardly involve an optional indirect object, as in Standard English sentences like (1a). In this sentence, him is understood as a beneficiary, and also as the intended possessor of a cake. Beneficiaries can also be expressed with a for-PP, as in (1b). (1) a. We baked him a cake. b. We baked a cake for him. (1a) can be paraphrased as (1b).1 In contrast, the indirect object of a verb like give is not a beneficiary; it is just a recipient. This is shown by the fact that it cannot correspond to a for-PP, but instead corresponds to a to-PP. (2) a. We gave him a cake. b. We gave a cake (to/*for) him. We take the ability to correspond to a for-PP as diagnostic of beneficiaries. 1 We set aside for now the fact that this only goes one way: (1b) has meanings that cannot be expressed with (1a). For example, if we baked a cake to entertain him, this can be expressed by (1b) but not (1a).  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 2/11 Wood and Zanuttini (2018) and Wood et al. (2020a) discuss a rarer kind of example, originally discussed in passing for Kentucky English by Dudley (1946), that they refer to as “Extended Benefactives” (EBs). Two examples of EBs are given below. (3b) was originally heard by Matt Tyler in a Mississippi diner. (3) a. We are looking for him a new home. ‘We are looking for a new home for him.’ b. I’ll be right back with you some tea, okay? ‘I’ll be right back with some tea for you, okay?’ In these examples, him and you are understood as beneficiaries, and can be paraphrased with a for-PP. What is remarkable about them is that the beneficiary and theme seem to be within a prepositional phrase, something that has never been described in the theoretical literature, as far as we know. These constructions are widely accepted in the American South, but generally rejected elsewhere. (See Wood et al. (2020a) and Wood et al. (2020b) for a detailed geographic study.) Wood and Zanuttini (2018) propose that these involve a single constituent, specifically an Appl(icative)P, that contains the dative and the theme and is the complement of the PP. (4) PP P ApplP with DP you Appl DP some tea Wood and Zanuttini’s argument had to do with a broader set of constructions suggesting that ApplPs distribute more like DPs in Southern varieties than they do in Standard English. However, the data on Extended Benefactives themselves underdetermine this analysis. In presenting this idea, we have encountered a few possible alternatives, which we will discuss here at a relatively informal level. The first alternative is that the preposition for is deleted by haplology. It is striking that most of the attested examples discussed there involve for, and the others involve with. Now, consider the fact that Southern American English sometimes puts PPs to the left of direct objects, so we end up with orders like (5b). (5) a. We baked a yummy cake [for him]. → b. We baked [for him] a yummy cake. Suppose, then, that what is going on in (3a) is that the for-PP moves to the left of the object, but this puts it right next to another for, the one selected by the verb look. This might lead to deleting one of the two adjacent instances of for. (6) a. We are looking for a new home [for him]. → b. We are looking for [for him] a new home. → c. We are looking for [for him] a new home.  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 3/11 Intuitively, then, it would appear as if this is some kind of blend, as though the one visible for is doing “double duty,” introducing the beneficiary and meeting the selectional restrictions of the verb. This is not unthinkable; phenomena like this are attested in natural language.2 The example in (3b) would seem at first glance to resist this kind of analysis, since there would be no haplology: the introducing preposition is with, not for. However, an alternative possibility is that the sentence means something more like I’ll be right back with you with some tea, in which case it is not a benefactive at all.3 (7) a. I’ll be right back with you with some tea. → b. I’ll be right back with you with some tea. Most of the other examples discussed by Wood and Zanuttini (2018) are amenable to some analysis along these lines. The ones that are not amenable to this analysis bring us to the second alternative. Wood and Zanuttini (2018) discuss examples like the following, which were taken from Sroda and Mishoe (1995) (with the exception of (8a), which was attested).4 (8) a. I’ve dated a lot, lot of athletes, but I’m still waiting on me a good Cub. b. I’m gonna go and play with me a cat. c. I’m gonna go and listen to me some music. d. I’m gonna go and look at me another used car. e. What I like is goats, I like to jus look at me some goats.5 These examples might also suggest an ApplP inside a PP, but they are distinct in a couple of ways. First, the “beneficiary” is coreferent with the subject, but is not a reflexive. These are known as “Personal Dative” constructions (Wolfram and Christian 1976; Christian 1991; Webelhuth and Dannenberg 2006; Conroy 2007; Horn 2008, 2013; Haddad 2011; Teomiro Garcı́a 2013; Gerwin 2014; Hutchinson and Armstrong 2014; Bosse 2014; Lee 2016). Second, although there is a kind of beneficiary-like meaning, they often do not submit to a paraphrase with a for-phrase. This second point makes it hard to analyze these examples in the manner outlined above, since there is no prepositional source that could lead to haplology and/or deletion. However, the alternative for these examples is what is known as “reanalysis”: the preposition is somehow analyzed as being part of a complex verb. At some level of abstraction, there is no PP, under this view—just a complex verb. These examples, then, are no more remarkable than any Personal Dative built on a direct object, such as I need me a new car. For these reasons, we set out to test the general syntactic flexibility of EBs, specifically with an eye toward the range of prepositions allowed (to address the haplology possibility) and the relationship of the prepositions to the verb (to address the reanalysis possibility). We will show that neither possibility can be maintained under this larger set of examples. 2 For example, German PPs can head free relative clauses that serve as the complement to an identical preposition, with the result that only one of the two expected prepositions is pronounced; see Hanink (2018) for discussion. 3 That is, it would blend “I’ll be with you in a moment” with “I’ll be right back with some tea.” 4 As noted by Wood and Zanuttini (2018), (8a) is from a contribution by Wilson Gray to the American Dialect Society email list, and was attributed to comedian Sheryl Underwood by the Chicago Tribune (9/11/16). 5 The spelling jus in place of just is replicated from the original source.  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 4/11 2. About the data About seventy sentences were both read aloud and presented visually to fifteen people who grew up and lived most of their lives in or near (within an hour’s drive from) Floyd County in Southwestern Virginia. These participants were found by the second author through the “friend of a friend” method. One participant has lived for the past several years in Richmond, Virginia, which is about a five-hour drive away. 14 of the 15 interviewees were white. They ranged from thirties to eighties in age, and ranged from no high school degree to an M.D. in education level. Three have high school diplomas, one has an associate’s degree, one has a master’s degree, and one has an M.D. The speakers were asked to rate the possibility that they would say each sentence—actual semantic content notwithstanding—as “yes,” “maybe,” or “no.” All accepted at least a few sentences, but we focus in this paper on the judgments of six speakers, who accepted 40% or more of the total set of sentences. These six most productive speakers were comprised of four white females and two white males, and all had at least a high school degree. 3. Not reanalysis There are several kinds of sentences which indicate that EBs are not the product of reanalysis with the verb. First, there are cases where the for-PP is itself contained within a noun phrase. None of the six speakers asked rejected any of the sentences in (9).6 (9) Within an NP a. I still don’t have a good idea for him a Christmas present. Yes No Maybe %Yes 6 0 0 100% b. I still don’t have a good idea for Hannah a Christmas present. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 0 0 100% c. I still don’t have a good idea for everybody a Christmas present. Yes No Maybe %Yes 6 0 0 100% d. I wouldn’t buy any house without you a nice big garage. Yes No Maybe %Yes 5 0 0 100% In (9a–c), the PP modifies the noun idea, and is contained within the NP headed by that noun. Here we also see that the beneficiary may be a pronoun (9a), a proper name (9b), or a quantifier 6 Note that this work was one-on-one, in person fieldwork, and not all speakers were asked about the same exact sentences. In this case, for example, all six speakers judged (9a) and (9c), while only four judged (9b) and five (9d).  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 5/11 (9c). In (9d), the PP without you a nice big garage is contained within the NP headed by the noun house, and serves as a modifier of that head noun. Since the preposition in these cases is contained within an NP, it is not plausible to imagine that the P undergoes reanalysis with the verb. That is, we cannot in any way set the preposition aside, in the structure, and treat these examples as ordinary ditransitive benefactive constructions. The second set of cases that challenge the reanalysis hypothesis involve sentences with be back with(out). Consider the following examples. (10) Be back with(out) a. I’ll be right back with you some tea. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 0 0 100% b. I’ll be right back with him some tea. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 0 0 100% c. I’ll be right back with everybody some tea. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 0 0 100% d. I’ll be right back with the kids some tea. Yes No Maybe %Yes 6 0 0 100% e. I came back without Grandma any tea. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 0 0 100% If these cases are the result of reanalysis, what is the preposition reanalyzed with? Is it the verb be or the predicate back? Note that there is no independent evidence for the availability of reanalysis here. Pseudo-passives, for example, are not generally possible. (11) * Some tea was come back with. Now, strictly speaking, (10a–d) are compatible with the haplology hypothesis mentioned above, if we assume that these sentences mean something like ‘I’ll be right back with him with some tea.’ We show in the next section that the haplology hypothesis cannot be maintained in general for this construction, but even here, it is worth noting that (10e) is not compatible with this hypothesis, as there is no paraphrase where without would be repeated. Moreover, native speaker intuitions  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 6/11 confirm that (10a–d) are not interpreted as ‘I’ll be right back with him with some tea,’ but very clearly mean ‘I’ll be right back with some tea for him’. Finally, as a final point about this data and the overall flexibility of this construction, we note that the dative itself can be a 1st or 3rd person pronoun, a quantifier, a definite DP, or a proper name. The third set of cases that argue against reanalysis involves the two sentences in (12). (12) Clausal adjuncts a. As far as Rufus a new collar, I hadn’t thought about that. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 2 0 60% b. Instead of him a video game for Christmas, I was thinking about a train set. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 1 0 75% These sentences were not accepted by all six speakers, but each was accepted by three of them. In these sentences, the constituent containing the benefactive construction is a clause-level adjunct.7 There is no direct connection to the verb that would explain these examples as really being ditransitives with a reanalyzed preposition. The last case involves purpose phrases headed by after.8 (13) Purpose after a. I came out here after my mom some flour but I got sidetracked. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 0 0 100% b. Grandpa needs flour. I’m going to the store after him some. Yes No Maybe %Yes 5 1 0 80% c. I came out here after my mom some flowers. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 1 0 75% 7 It is possible that the instead constituent (12b) does have a syntactic relationship with the material inside the clause, but it is nevertheless not in a position where reanalysis with the verb is a reasonable possibility. 8 For now, we refrain from speculating about why (13) is rejected, other than to point out that the beneficiary here is inanimate, and animacy effects of this sort are often found with beneficiaries and other applied objects.  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 7/11 d. I came out here after him some flour. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 0 1 75% e. I’m going outside after this plant some fertilizer. Yes No Maybe %Yes 0 6 0 0 In these cases as well, the preposition does not have direct connection with the verb that would make a plausible case for reanalysis. These PPs seem to modify the whole VP, and once again, pseudo-passives are not possible: (14) * Some flowers were come out here after. One final case we will mention is the example in (15). (15) I’ve searched the house up and down for this kid some shoes and haven’t found any. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 0 0 100% Unlike the other examples in this section, it is not unreasonable to imagine reanalysis with search and for. However, we simply point out that this would be a very abstract process, as the phrase up and down intervenes between search and for. Instead, this seems to show that for and the material following it forms a constituent. Another aspect that makes reanalysis unlikely in this case is the fact that there is already a direct object, the house. If we supposed that the preposition for was reanalyzed as part of the verb, this would mean that the verb search takes three objects: the house, this kid and some shoes. This is highly unlikely, since verb phrases in English do not allow three DP objects, in any construction. 4. Not haplology The haplology hypothesis was based around the idea that the initial examples presented all involved with and for, and in both cases, it is possible to construct standard English paraphrases that contain two instances of these prepositions. It is not unreasonable, then, to imagine that one instance is being deleted by haplology, perhaps along with some other word order adjustments. In the previous section, however, we presented examples with without, as far as, instead of, and after, which already cast doubt on the haplology hypothesis. In this section, we present more examples of different prepositions, casting further doubt on the haplology hypothesis. Here, we see examples with about, across, at, by, into, on, and past. (16) a. They’re thinking about Mom some new glasses. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 2 0 60%  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 8/11 b. I ran across you a new friend yesterday. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 3 0 50% c. They’re looking at my friend some braces. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 0 0 100% d. Back on the Interstate we passed by you a new swimming pool. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 3 0 50% e. We’re looking into this kid some braces. Yes No Maybe %Yes 6 0 0 100% f. I’m still waiting on him a new car. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 1 0 75% g. We just drove past you a swimming pool. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 2 0 60% Many of these cases are compatible with the reanalysis hypothesis that we argued against in the previous section. However, they speak very strongly against the haplology hypothesis. Together with the independent arguments against the reanalysis hypothesis, the examples we discuss in this paper point instead to an analysis where the dative is contained within a constituent containing the DP, and that this constituent—an ApplP, according to Wood and Zanuttini (2018)—can be the complement of a preposition. 5. Further benefactive constructions Since Extended Benefactives are so understudied, in this section we present some further examples that we have tested, without, however, delving into their theoretical significance. We will assume, for the cases of discussion and description, that the ApplP analysis outlined above is correct. First, we would like to point out that subextraction is possible from the DP complement of Appl.  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 9/11 (17) I’m looking for Hannah a picture of the house. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 0 0 100% (18) Which house are you looking for your friend a picture of? Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 0 0 100% Second, we have examples with particle verbs, including off, over, and around. (19) a. I’m washing off you a lid. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 1 0 80% b. Let’s talk over you some better coping strategies. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 3 0 50% c. I’m looking over him some tax returns. Yes No Maybe %Yes 2 3 0 40% d. I’m gonna send around y’all this card to sign. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 1 0 80% In all of these examples, the particle immediately follows the verb. We have not tested the word order where the particle appears to the right of ApplP. Finally, we have some examples with need, which do not have any preposition at all. (20) We need this car some new windshield wipers. Yes No Maybe %Yes 4 0 0 100% (21) We need this dog a shorter leash. Yes No Maybe %Yes 3 2 0 60%  Notes on Extended Benefactives — 10/11 These are not, strictly, the same construction, but they are worth mentioning because they are another sort of benefactive that is not possible in many varieties of English. They are more broadly compatible with the hypothesis that in this variety, ApplP distributes like a DP. 6. Conclusion In this paper, we have presented novel data on Extended Benefactive constructions, based on one-on-one fieldwork with speakers from Southwestern Virginia. 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