Re: Ditransitivity (again!)

--- John Quijada <jq_ithkuil@...> wrote:

> There's more going on with ditransitivity in
> English than one might
> initially suspect.  Compare the following pairs
> of sentences which contrast
> monotransitive and ditransitive versions (the
> *asterisk in front of 2b
> indicates a grammatically unacceptable
> sentence).
>
> 1a)  The secretary supplied the report to the
> boss.
> 1b)  The secretary supplied the boss the
> report.
>
> 2a)  The worker applied the solvent to the
> stain.
> 2b) *The worker applied the stain the solvent.
>
> So why is Sentence 2b unacceptable? It has to
> do with underlying semantic
> roles.  I discuss this in Section 9.3.2 of my
> Ithkuil grammar.  You might
> want to check it out to see how Ithkuil deals
> with this problem.
I guess it depends on exactly what you mean by
the example being problematic.

Certainly "transitivity" means capable of taking
an object; so it is logical to understand di- as
capable of taking two objects (presumably a
direct and an indirect), and the definition given
at
<http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsDitransitivity.htm>
bears this out. That some indirect objects can
not be bare datives (i.e., they require a
preoposition) doesn't seem to be enough to say
that the verb isn't capable of taking two
objects. Perhaps there is something about
dativity that requires a person to be involved.

Padraic.


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