Re: THEORY: more questions

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