Re: Ditransitivity (again!)

David Barrow wrote:

> These verbs can all take two word orders
>
> buy me some milk
> buy some milk for me
>
But note the preposition "for".  That makes it a benefactive, IMO.  I'm
trying to restrict dative to those cases where the structure can change from
"verb X Y" to "verb Y to X".  It may be unnecessarily restrictive, but I
don't think so.

I used to kid my mother when she said "Put me in a piece of
toast"..........And there's the old wheeze, A: "Call me a cab!"  B:  "OK,
you're a cab!" (Groucho, I think, but it's way older than that)

> What about those verbs that can only take one word order
>
> explain this passage to me
> not
> explain me this passage
Well, as Mark Reed just posted, it's acceptable to him.    To me, it's
marginal.  OTOH "he told me a story" is fine but -->?"He told a story to me"
seems awkward, though of course it's perfectly correct.
>
> others include
> say, mention, introduce
>
> Are they considered ditransitive? Or do they come under some other
category?
>
Optional ditrans. in my view.  And they require a to-phrase. *He said me
that....   *He mentioned me Mary     *He introduced me John. vs. "he said to
me that..., he mentioned Mary to me.... He introduced John to me. And
they're all good without the to-phrase, though with different meaning.  Note
that "he said that..., he mentioned Mary...., he introduced John..." are all
perfectly good.
("Introduce" caused me real headaches in Kash, since it's a causative form.)

There seem also to be some animacy concerns lurking here; it's difficult to
conceive e.g. of "giving" something to an inanimate*.  Cf. J.Quijada's "he
applied solvent to the stain" (though personally I'd call that a locative,
not a dative).  But give it an animate object, and it's still "The doctor
applied salve to John" not *The dr. applied John salve".

ObConlang! I think "...applied salve to John" would be ungrammatical in
Kash-- they would have to specify something like "...to John's wound/chest"
etc. and it would definitely be a locative phrase.

Amusingly, OTOH, "he went to his father for money" _would_ use the dative in
Kash, because the locative prep. _ri_ can't take a bare human object...
(except in the genitive, ri mami, ri ereki -- where it means 'at my
place/house, at Erek's place/house' rather like French "chez moi, chez
Christophe" :-)) )
----------------------------------------------
*But we do have "he gave the car/stone a push/kick".  But depending on the
object noun, "He gave a .... to the car/stone" starts to sound odd.
Exceptions everywhere, alas.  In Kash, inanimates hardly ever occur in the
dative case.