Re: Question about transitivity/intransitivity

On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 13:50:46 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

>Sure this has anything to do with dropped prepositions? "I give John the
dog"
>looks EXTREMELY much like the dative constructions found in other Germanic
>languages.
>
>                                                             Andreas
I see what you're saying.  That's certainly possible, and your example
of "Ich gebe ihm den Hund" makes it reasonable.  English "him" was
originally a dative, as I understand it, and it was spread analogically to
become an accusative (which is quite common among the world's languages).
However, the original dative meaning is preserved in sentences like "I give
him the dog".  I think you're correct, Andreas; in the previous sentence,
since "him" was originally a dative, no preposition is needed, and with
word-order fixed so that indirect object precedes direct object
with "give," the preposition "to" can easily be omitted (since it could be
considered semi-redundant) in sentences like "I give John the dog."

- Rob

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