| From: | John Quijada <jq_ithkuil@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, January 24, 2004, 21:07 |
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.
| Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...> |