Abstract This chapter keys the rise of to-datives to the loss of dative case and views it as a continuation of the older direct-indirect object order, where the indirect case was marked for a dative case. It adopts Harley's (1999) adaptation of Larson's VP-shell analysis and treats a wide range of data from the Penn–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English. It shows that the to-dative first emerged in early Middle English as the morphological case system collapsed in most dialects. The chapter offers a careful analysis of various movement operations, arguing for a single base order for to-datives. This permits the argument that what is constant is the fact the indirect objects at all stages received oblique case; what changed is that oblique was once realized by overt case-marking but came later to be realized as a PP.
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