A contrastive analysis of interaction verbs with dative complements

Agentive two-place verbs with dative complements (e.g. German helfen (help), folgen (follow)) are generally assumed to bear a lexical feature that blocks regular accusative linking for their nonsubject argument and indicates the selection of the dative case. In the present paper, it is argued that dative selection of two-place verbs is cross-linguistically systematic. Evidence for this claim is provided from one group of two-place verbs with dative complements that are called interaction verbs. It is shown that the Polynesian dative-selecting two-place verbs (middle verbs) included in the data of Chung's (1978) investigation show a striking affinity in meaning to two-place verbs with dative complements in four Indo-European languages of different families. This observation seriously challenges any account that treats two-place verbs with dative complements principally as idiosyncratic. However, Kiparsky's (1995) recent proposal to motivate the dative selection of two-place verbs semantically by the homogeneity of the events the respective verbs denote is rejected. In the present approach, the marked linking pattern of these verbs is explained in terms of their low semantic transitivity. I assume that the semantic transitivity of a verb with more than one argument is low if the thematic roles of the arguments show no agent-patient asymmetry