Double object constructions in Spanish (and Catalan) revisited

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence for a new view on Romance double object constructions (DOC). Against the general trend, we do not try to prove the existence of Romance DOC by comparing it to the well-known English-like dative alternation. Instead, we propose a new approach to Romance ditransitive constructions (DitrC) in general, focusing on European Spanish and Catalan data. Crucially, against Demonte (1995) and Cuervo (2003a,b) among others, we show that the presence of dative clitic doubling (DCD) is not a condition sine qua non for DOC, based on the assumption that the dative clitic may be optionally spelled out since there is silence variation (Sigurðsson 2004, Kayne 2005).