Re: Ditransitivity (again!)

These verbs can all take two word orders

buy me some milk
buy some milk for me

What about those verbs that can only take one word order

explain this passage to me
not
explain me this passage

others include
say, mention, introduce

Are they considered ditransitive? Or do they come under some other category?

David Barrow


Andrew Patterson wrote:

>Ditransitive verbs - Verbs that can take two objects
>
>Boil -  Boil me an egg.
> Boil an egg for me.
>
>Burn  = record onto a writable CD or DVD.
> Can you burn me a CD?
> Can you burn a CD for me?
>
>Bung [Infl] = throw
> Bung me the ball.
>
>The other verbs are:
>Buy, Call, Cook (and all kinds of cooking), Consider, Cry, Fetch, Find,
>Fry, Give, Hand, Hold, Leave, Lend, Lob, Offer, Pass, Post, Provide, Read,
>Send, Scribble, Serve, Show, Suggest, Teach, Tell, Think, Throw, Write.
>
>
>I haven’t quite gone into this deeply enough, but it seems that a word that
>is nearly synonyms to a verb that is ditransitive is also ditransitive.
>
>I’m not sure, but this list might include every English Ditransitive verb.
>
>
>

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