Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2026
I describe a typological gap in case and agreement alignment in ditransitive constructions. In languages in which verbal agreement is controlled by the subject and at most one object, object case and agreement in ditransitive constructions do not exhibit all logically possible combinations of alignment. I show that this typological gap follows from assumptions about the structure of ditransitive constructions (recipients c-command themes) and the interaction of morphological case and agreement (case marking restricts agreement). These assumptions derive exactly and only the attested patterns of alignment. I also argue that the typological gap in ditransitive constructions has a parallel in transitive constructions, providing further support for the proposals made here.
The research reported here was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 707404 (LEaDing Fellows Programme) while I was at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. I am grateful to Jenneke van der Wal, Lisa Cheng, and Jenny Doetjes in Leiden and to audiences online and in Berlin, Frankfurt, Utrecht, and Vancouver. Discussions with Rafael Abramovitz and Pietro Baggio provided valuable insights. I also thank Friederike Classe for her help with the data and Jutta-Maria Hartmann for her comments. Last but not least, the referees and editors for Language provided detailed and constructive feedback that improved this paper considerably.