Re: Ditransitivity

At 09:17 PM 12/12/03 -0500, you wrote:
>For my all-verb language, I'm trying to figure out what to do with
>ditransitives like "give".  Basically, I see two options: either do
>away with ditransitives, or add verbal indirect-object marking and a
>dative case.
>
>Does anyone know if there is a way to get rid of ditransitives?  Id you
>don't want to have indirect objects, how can you deal with concepts
>like "give"?
Can you get rid of ditransitives by replacing the dative case with an
adverb?  I mean, instead of having a dative case and marking the IO of the
verb with the dative case, make the IO of the verb an adverb.  e.g. He gave
the book John-ly = He gave the book to John.  I realize that this means
turning a noun or pronoun into an adverb, which is not a normal thing to
do, in my own experience.  (And, of course, I have no idea how my
suggestion would work out at all in any language, much less in an all-verb
language.  (In general, I have great difficulty conceptualizing languages
in which a major part of speech does not exist.))

FWIW

Isidora

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