Re: Question about transitivity/intransitivity

Stone Gordonssen wrote:
>> I'd consider "I give the dog to John" to be an example of a transitive
>> verb with an oblique recipient, while "I give John the dog" is an
>> example of a ditransitive. But I'm hardly an expert here...
>
>
> Will you elaborate on this? It is an issue with which I am struggling in my
> new conlang.
I'm just saying that "I gave the dog to John" is basically the same
sentence as "I gave the dog"...the recipient is optionally supplied by
means of an oblique (a prepositional phrase). In "I gave John the dog",
on the other hand, no arguments are oblique, so in this case "gave" is
ditransitive. It's sort of like the difference between "The door opens"
and "He opens the door", except in regards to the indirect object. Not
sure if that made it any clearer...

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