Re: USAGE: Implied prepositions in English

--- On Wed, 11/12/08, Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...> wrote:


> > Random observation:
...
> >
> > John paid a dollar TO Mary. => John paid Mary a
> dollar.
> > John paid a dollar FOR Mary.
> >
> > The preference seems to be for the verb to imply
> "TO" if possible, and if "TO" is not
> allowed, to imply "FOR".
>
> That's the infamous dative shift:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative_shift
>
> K.
Ah, thank you. I didn't think I'd discovered anything new. :)

--gary