Since the paper by Barss and Lasnik (1986), the fact that the double object construction exhibits Theme/Goal asymmetries has been the object of an important debate in the literature. The central question of this discussion is whether these asymmetries should be accounted for in terms of dominance (e.g., Larson 1988, 1990; Aoun and Li 1989; den Dikken 1991) or precedence (e.g., Barss and Lasnik 1986; Jackendoff 1990; Tremblay 1991). On the dominance account, the Goal must asymmetrically c-command the Theme (e.g., Larson 1988, 1990). On Barss and Lasnik’s account, the Goal and the Theme of the construction may symmetrically c-command each other but the Goal must precede the Theme. This proposal is captured in their definition of domain of (1986:352).

In the past few years, a number of articles have argued that the default articulator for consonants is Coronal (see, for example, Kiparsky 1985; Iverson and Kim 1987:187; Shaw 1988; Avery and Rice 1989; and the contributors to Paradis and Prunet 1991). Paradis and Prunet (1993b), with a view to strengthening and formalizing this proposal, have expressed the Weak Coronal Hypothesis (WCH) in (1).