The theme-recipient alternation in Chinese: tracking syntactic variation across seven centuries

Abstract Previous research has tracked the history of theme-recipient alternation (or: “dative” alternation) in Chinese, but few studies have embedded their analysis a probabilistic variationist framework. Against this backdrop, we explore language-internal and language-external factors that probabilistically influence between theme-first recipient-first ordering large diachronic corpus Chinese writing (1300s–1900s). Our reveals variant is consistently more frequent than its competitor even common recent texts older texts. Regression also suggests there are stable linguistic constraints (i.e., animacy definiteness theme) fluid end-weight, recipient animacy). Notably, instability end-weight points to cross-linguistic parallels for ditransitive constructions, including English dative alternation. We thus contribute theory building linguistics by advancing field’s knowledge about comparative fluidity versus stability constraints.