As stated in the preface, the majority of papers found in this volume were first presented at a workshop held in Mainz, Germany in February 2004 during the 26th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Linguistics (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft—DGfS). The workshop on “Datives and similar cases,” organized by Daniel Hole (Munich) and André Meinunger (Berlin), brought together linguists of diverse theoretical backgrounds to discuss and critique recent trends in datives and related morphological cases, as well as phenomena that are semantically and/or functionally similar while simultaneously displaying “a divergent constructional make-up” (vii). The contributions to this volume are arranged on the basis of whether or not they discuss facts from Germanic languages, with papers related to this language family constituting the majority. By not separating syntactic—regardless of the diverse theoretical persuasions found in the contributions—and semantic approaches, the editors were able to produce a volume that provides a comprehensive, panoramic view of datives in Germanic and related languages. Focusing on the chapters that discuss data from and issues pertaining directly to Germanic languages past and present, this review illustrates the numerous valuable contributions of this volume to our understanding of datives in Germanic, while also indicating areas and re-lated epiphenomena in need of further research.

The volume begins with an introductory piece, entitled “Datives: Structural vs. inherent—abstract vs. morphological—autonomous vs. combinatory—universally vs. language-specific configured,” by Werner Abraham. The central purpose of this paper is “to sketch what appear to be relevant topics in the linguistic discussion of Case in general and the Dative in particular” (p. 3). This comprehensive overview of datives in Germanic languages provided by Abraham not only highlights the comprehensive research of the past, but also points toward areas that are still in need of thorough research. Abraham's introduction pursues the general question on the extent to which argumenthood and semantic roles can be mediated by morphological case. From a typological overview, Abraham conclusively demonstrates that the dative can be associated with the semantic role beneficiary with few exceptions, especially in Germanic languages.

Thomas McFadden's contribution, “German inherent datives and argument structure,” questions the traditional assertion that the defining characteristic of German inherent dative arguments is not morphological, but rather syntactic. To support this claim, McFadden employs mounting evidence that dative objects with both two- and three-place verbs differ in their argument-structural status from direct objects receiving structural accusative case. According to McFadden—whose research builds upon the previous studies by Yip, Maling, & Jackendoff (1987), Sigurðsson (2003), Marantz (1991), Harley (1995), Schütze (1997), and McFadden (2004), among others—a close connection between case and A-movement, as maintained in Government and Binding theory, cannot be upheld in light of recent theoretical claims. As a result, the special syntactic behavior of datives determines their case-assignment rather than their special case-assignment driving the syntax (as previously assumed in Government and Binding).

André Meinunger's contribution, “Remarks on the projection of dative arguments in German,” endorses the hypothesis (contra Höhle 1982 and Haider 1993) that German ditransitive verbs do not display different base orders in the verb phrase projection. Meinunger maintains that true dative objects (so-called higher datives) generally precede and, therefore, c-command accusative arguments. Accordingly, what has been perceived in the literature as potentially multiple base orders of arguments in German ditransitive VPs can be explained as a misunder-standing of a focus projection at the edge of vP and the “overlooking of some semantic facts with Dat > Acc, Acc > PP alternations” (p. 79). When dative objects appear closer to the verb than accusatives (that is, Acc > Dat orders), Meinunger suggests that true datives are not involved, but rather hidden PPs. The central claim that a universal hierarchy of arguments exists (for example, [SU [IO [DO [PP (V)]]]]) is quite similar in design to other independently developed notions of the relationship between dative case and argument structure (see McFadden 2004, and also McIntyre's contribution to the volume).

The next contribution, Patrick Brandt's “Receiving and perceiving dative (cipients): A view from German,” groups together a range of constructions featuring dative case-marked arguments in German, which in turn allows for interesting conjectures about the interface between syntactic and semantic/pragmatic representation. Brandt's analysis unites Double Object Constructions (DOCs) and Dative Experiencer Constructions (DECs), as in 1a,b respectively (data from p. 104).

The DEC variant given in 1b does not feature a verbal but an adjectival predicate; more precisely, it involves a too-comparative predicate. Brandt argues that the degree element in the too-comparative plays a role parallel to that of the location argument: “location” must then be understood, according to Brandt, in a wide sense, covering at least “degree location.” Brandt demonstrates that a too-comparative can also license a DOC-structure with verbal predicates that usually do not license dative arguments (that is, individual-level predicates), as shown in 2 (data again from p. 104).

Both of the dative constructions in 1a,b—referred to as cipients—can be licensed under two conditions: (i) predicates licensing cipients project a theme and a location argument internally; (ii) the interpretation of the predication as a whole involves reference to two dissociated temporal intervals, or more generally, indexical truth intervals. According to Brandt, the location argument is needed because it provides the variable that ranges over superlocations of the location argument referent, which is bound by the cipient argument. Reference to two truth intervals is thus forced because interpreting the cipient structure involves evaluation of two propositional meanings that would contradict each other in a single context.

In contrast to Meinunger's contribution discussed above, Philippa Cook's “The datives that aren't born equal: Beneficiaries and the dative passive claims,” is in agreement with Haider (1992) that some German ditransitives have a basic Acc > Dat underlying order. Cook asserts, however, that it is often overlooked that some of these aforementioned German ditranstives also have a second variant with the unmarked order of Dat > Acc. Cook employs Lexical Mapping Theory of the Lexical-Functional Grammar framework to demonstrate that the two variant underlying orders subcategorize for different grammatical functions (GFs), which require two distinct lexical entries. Under such an analysis, the “high” datives bear the grammatical function of secondary object, whereas the less common “low” datives are interpreted as oblique objects. Cook makes use of this more finely grained distinction between “high” and “low” datives to provide an in-depth analysis of kriegen-passive constructions in German, as illustrated in 3 (data from p. 161).

It is most generally assumed that German ditransitives exhibiting an underlying Acc > Dat order of arguments are prohibited from appearing in kriegen-passive constructions (see 3a). By contrast, when a “deprive” rather than a “withdraw” reading is forced, or at the very least strongly favored (due to the choice of lexical material), the kriegen-passive is possible, as evidenced in 3b. In sum, some of the verbs thought to license only “low” datives are shown to select either type of dative and as a result the distribution of kriegen-passives corresponds with the conceptual structures of these ditransitive patterns.

“The interpretation of German dative and English have,” written by Andrew McIntyre, offers an overview of the main classes of German datives, arguing that most of them are interpreted in exactly the same way as subjects of English have. As a result of this correlation, McIntyre suggests that datives can be treated as inherently case-marked specifiers of an applicative light verb that has the same underspecified meaning as have. A central new contribution made in this article is that most datives relate to situations in the same way as subjects of so-called “experiencer” have. Accordingly, the dative object in 4a will receive the same interpretation of the English sentence in 4b (data from p. 185).

McIntyre extends this analysis to possessor datives, beneficiaries, recipients, maleficiaries, privative (source) datives, datives with particle verbs, and datives interpreted as causers. He also briefly discusses “low datives” (that is, those datives that appear lower than patient-theme arguments in base/underlying word order) that should not be affected by this analysis.

Jürg Fleischer's contribution, “Dative and indirect object in German dialects: Evidence from relative clauses,” investigates the relation between dative case and the indirect object in the formation of relative clauses in non-standard German dialects. Fleischer examines the validity of Keenan & Comrie's (1977:76) Accessibility Hierarchy in connection with a language's strategy in licensing particular syntactic structures:

According to this hierarchy, the construction of relative clauses is constrained as follows: Positions further up on the hierarchy are more accessible to relativization than lower positions. Fleischer also adopts and tests Keenan & Comrie's (1977, 1979) basic distinction between languages that employ [+case] versus [-case] strategies for licensing relative clauses. Fleischer embarks on a detailed study of continental German dialects (Yiddish and a North Frisian dialect are also taken into account) and their use of these strategies in licensing relative clauses. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the geographical distribution of these systems displays no clearly discernible areal pattern. Based on the data and analysis set forth here, even closely related dialects tend to diverge with respect to indirect object relative clauses. As a result, Fleischer concludes that the indirect object “seems to be relatively un-stable in the German diasystem” (p. 233), at least with regard to the licensing of relative clause constructions.

The final contribution focusing on datives in Germanic languages is Katrin Schmitz's “Indirect objects and dative case in monolingual German and bilingual German/Romance language acquisition.” As indicated by the title, this article discusses the acquisition of German dative case by monolingual German, bilingual German/French, and German/Italian children. It shows that bilingual children have a clear delay in acquiring the correct marking of case (with particular focus on datives) compared to monolingual children, and demonstrates that until age 5.0 the marking of dative case is not target-like in bilingual children. Another noteworthy finding in Schmitz's research suggests that the morphological marking of dative case and the correct projection of indirect objects develop independently, with the acquisition of the dative developing later than the mastery of indirect objects.

The final three contributions (Dalina Kallulli's “Unaccusatives with dative causers and experiencers: A unified account,” Jelena Krivokapiæ's “Putting things into perspective: The function of the dative in adjectival constructions in Serbian,” and Walter Bisang's “Widening the perspective: Argumenthood and syntax in Chinese, Japanese, and Tagalog)” discuss datives in non-Germanic languages. These articles are a welcome addition to the continuing dialogue on the syntactic, semantic, and morphological properties of datives cross-linguistically.

This volume takes on the daunting task of looking at traditional “problematic” data involving datives through the guise of modern theoretical assumptions (that is, minimalist inquiry). The analyses offer not only significant insight into metatheoretical arguments and claims, but also provide an interesting new interpretation of datives and their structural and semantic properties. In sum, these papers look at traditional semantic, syntactic, and morphological issues anew with the aid of theoretical changes and additional research that has taken place since the Government and Binding era of syntactic theory. The shift in current theoretical desiderata that interprets the special syntactic behavior of datives as determining their case assignment, rather than their special case assignment driving the syntax (as previously assumed in syntactic theory of the Government and Binding era), forces the reinvestigation of many key matters surrounding datives. This volume thus serves as a cutting-edge work that approaches the form and function of datives—both in Germanic and in typologically diverse languages—in a conceptually appealing way.