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Re: THEORY: more questions

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Tuesday, November 25, 2003, 23:23
Quoting Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>:

> On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 20:01:17 +0000, Tim May > <butsuri@...> wrote: > > > Paul Bennett wrote at 2003-11-25 14:47:14 (-0500) > > > On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 19:49:02 +0100, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > That seems to leave English's indirect objects rather hanging in the > > > > blue?* > > > > > > I don't understand. I can't think of a single indirect object in > > English > > > that isn't marked by a preposition, except for possibly ill-formed > > > utterances like > > > > > > ?give it me > > > > > > for > > > > > > give it to me > > > > > > I don't know. I don't claim for one minute to be an expert in English > > > syntax. Maybe I'm merely failing to understand some aspect of your > > > statement that is at a more abstract technical level than I'm used to > > > encountering. > > > > "Give me the book". Or rather, "he gave me the book", as it's > > probably best to use a declarative example. > > > > Hmm. > > Which is more grammatical: > > ?he gave me > > or > > ?he gave the book > > Maybe grammatical is the wrong word. Maybe "understandable" is a better > word, or, maybe, "unambiguous"? > > It's my understanding that the recipient/benefactive noun takes the Oblique > case in (almost?) all cases like this, leading me to wonder whether "the > book" is a greater candidate for direct-object-hood than "me".
According to any vaguely orthodox analysis, "me" is the indirect object (note lack of preposition!), and "the book" the direct one. Andreas