How is English not Accusative-Dechticaetiative?

[spats]

I believe WALS describes "he gave me it" as a double object construction, neither dative or dechticaetiative.

That might be the answer. What's the difference? Or is it a case where there's no distinction in marking on the arguments, it doesn't actually count?

As for passives, "I was given it by him" and "it was given to me by him" are grammatical for me, bit something like "it was given me by him" is not.

I agree, though perhaps the first sounds a tad stilted. Way better than "he gave us it", anyway.

[spats]

I'll also point out that, in poking around at academic materials on the web, I've found a number of other sources that consider sentences like "I gave John it" questionable. I'm not the only one.

But it turns out there's an alternate explanation for my original question, other than that T doesn't pattern with P:

In double object constructions, there is a tendency to move the more complex piece of information to the end of the sentence. So, for example, we have:

??The man gave the large umbrella that had been sitting in the corner all day to me.
The man gave me the large umbrella that had been sitting in the corner all day.

The man gave the umbrella to the woman who had been waiting patiently for her child.
??The man gave the woman who had been waiting patiently for her child the umbrella.
**The man gave the woman who had been waiting patiently for her child it.

This preference also applies to proper names (at least IMD, but it's cited in numerous sources online as well):

John gave it to Mary
??John gave Mary it

... which can manifest as a general preference not to put a pronoun in the second slot:

John gave her the book
??John gave her it
John gave it to her

We sent them Mary
We sent Mary to them
??We sent them her
We sent her to them

It's a pretty good argument that avoids having to classify English as one or the other alignment at all.

You can also argue that the schemes for passivization don't preferably promote the R argument because it is R, but rather in order to preserve word order, which is critical for understanding in English, so there's no real need to differentiate the two objects in terms of case.

[Ser]

Except that so far you're the only one that that's true for. I would completely disagree with the italicized "more" in that statement.

[EDIT: To clarify: I think "He gave us it" is 100% natural, and I find it incredibly weird that you question its being grammatical. "He gave John it" is a bit more marked, but is a far cry from being ungrammatical; in particular I would use this order if I'm trying to emphasize "John", as in "He gave John it, but not Joe."]

So maybe you can say that's true for your [idio/dia]lect, but certainly not for American English, much less English as a whole.

How funny.

I just asked three native speakers here and...

1. One of them said "he gave me it" and "he gave it to me" are the same. No difference in usage. "yea / like he gave me that paper / he gave me it"

2. Another said "he gave me it is less common but its not incorrect,, if it were up to me i would think its based on the type of learning you're exposed to". So "less common" (no idea what the last bit means though).

3. And yet the other said "i say "he gave me it" but i guess thats incorrect". Hmmm... So it's somewhat stigmatized?

And I should add the three are of the same sex, age, and similar economic status, and live at the most 6 km from each other...

[finlay]

I'll also point out that, in poking around at academic materials on the web, I've found a number of other sources that consider sentences like "I gave John it" questionable. I'm not the only one.

You don't say. I already pointed out that I find this odd at best. "I gave him it" isn't questionable for 95% of people, though.

In double object constructions, there is a tendency to move the more complex piece of information to the end of the sentence. So, for example, we have:
The man gave me the large umbrella that had been sitting in the corner all day.

The man gave the umbrella to the woman who had been waiting patiently for her child.

And what if both are complex? Would you prefer:
The man gave the large umbrella that had been sitting in the corner all day to the woman who'd been waiting patiently for her child.
or
The man gave the woman who'd been waiting patiently for her child the large umbrella that had been sitting in the corner all day.

i know i'd prefer the first.

[spats]

And what if both are complex? Would you prefer:
The man gave the large umbrella that had been sitting in the corner all day to the woman who'd been waiting patiently for her child.
or
The man gave the woman who'd been waiting patiently for her child the large umbrella that had been sitting in the corner all day.

i know i'd prefer the first.

Six of one, half dozen of the other, but the first might be better. Might relate to the same feature of "she gave it to him" or "I sent Mary to John" where equal complexity encourages (but does not always require) valency reduction.

[Gray Richardson]

I'm somewhat surprised by the folks who are disagreeing with Spats.

"I gave him it" sounds very, very weird to me. While I suppose it's not ungrammatical, I would never say that.

The more natural sounding construction (to me) is "I gave it to him."

Interestingly, "I gave him that" sounds okay to me. But "I gave him it" sounds weird. Not sure why.

I grew up in Tulsa but have lived most of my adult life in Texas. If it helps, I would describe my dialect as West Midland.

[Sevly]

So maybe you can say that's true for your [idio/dia]lect, but certainly not for American English, much less English as a whole.

Definitely dialect. Like Gray, I'm completely stunned that so many of you disagree with spats on this, since to me 'I gave him it' is downright ungrammatical. I certainly don't hear it very often, and my Ling 101 class last fall, a construction like this was marked as questionable and no one batted an eyelash, so I don't think I'm the only one.

You don't say. I already pointed out that I find this odd at best. "I gave him it" isn't questionable for 95% of people, though.

As I just noted, I find the inverse odd, so it must be dialectal. Then again, a quick google.ca corpus search finds more hits for "I gave him it" (about 26,400,000 results) than "I gave it to him" (21,300,000), although google search's inability to match punctuation returns numerous hits of the kind "...I gave him. It...", so that number would be inflated. Still, there's a sizeable number of people out there--admittedly more than I would have imagined--who have no problem with said construction.







You people are freaks. :}

[Nortaneous]

"John gave me it" is ungrammatical how? It's perfect English to me. They are both perfect English and I can't find one form which is superior over the other; they are both equal and grammatical.

That construction is ungrammatical with pronouns IMI, but it's preferred when the patient isn't a pronoun. I can say "John gave me the book" or "John gave me that", and I'd be much more likely to say those than the equivalents with "to", but I can't say *"John gave me it"; it'd have to be "John gave it to me".

I'm from Maryland.

[dhok]

Just to confuse things even more, I find it natural to do prepositionless verb-object-indirect object order in imperatives if both nominal arguments are pronouns: "Give it me!"

[Ser]

"John gave me it" is ungrammatical how? It's perfect English to me. They are both perfect English and I can't find one form which is superior over the other; they are both equal and grammatical.

That construction is ungrammatical with pronouns IMI,

It's not ungrammatical for many as we've seen in this thread though. See the responses of the three natives I asked above, who all found it grammatical (but differed on the sociolinguistics). All of them are from Greater Vancouver.

[bulbaquil]

"John gave me it" is grammatical for me too. I live nowhere near Vancouver.

[Yng]

I have 'John gave me it' and 'John gave it me' in free variation, with the latter more common.

[Bob Johnson]

That construction is ungrammatical with pronouns IMI,

It's not ungrammatical for many as we've seen in this thread though. See the responses of the three natives I asked above, who all found it grammatical (but differed on the sociolinguistics). All of them are from Greater Vancouver.

So? Are you going to tell us it's wrong to find this construction unacceptable?

This sort of "argument" makes me wonder how much is based on the "anything goes" anti-prescriptivist school of linguistics, and how much is based on people just not caring as long as they (as a fluent speaker) can understand the intent.

[Lyhoko Leaci]

I have 'John gave me it' and 'John gave it me' in free variation, with the latter more common.

To me, both of those are okay grammar-wise, but the first means that John gave something to you, while the second means that John gave you to something. (Though I don't think that would come up much...)

[Ser]

That construction is ungrammatical with pronouns IMI,

It's not ungrammatical for many as we've seen in this thread though. See the responses of the three natives I asked above, who all found it grammatical (but differed on the sociolinguistics). All of them are from Greater Vancouver.

So? Are you going to tell us it's wrong to find this construction unacceptable?

I later realized I had skipped over the "IMI" ('in my idiolect') bit, thinking Nortaneous had posted a generalization. I don't say it's wrong to find it unacceptable, but it's wrong to say it is universally unacceptable, as in a statement to be applied to all speakers of English.

This sort of "argument" makes me wonder how much is based on the "anything goes" anti-prescriptivist school of linguistics,

Languages and dialects are largely conventions within groups and entirely arbitrary in origin; what in the world could give anybody the right to impose these conventions for everybody to use them at all times?

and how much is based on people just not caring as long as they (as a fluent speaker) can understand the intent.

And why is "not caring of how one says things as long as the other person understands" a bad thing exactly? If the purpose is just to get the other person to understand your message (or misunderstand it, if that's your intention), then why should we pay so much attention on what somebody alien to the conversation thinks about how we should say it?

My argument here is basically that language is pretty much a "the end justifies the means" thing. If there's any reason why I spell "your" ‹your› here and not ‹ur› is because this is a convention for written English among my audience, ZBBers. I know it would make many here cringe to see it spelled ‹ur› as it's not common in this forum to use this spelling, and it's not my intention to do that. I'm not doing it because the guys from the Merriam-Webster dictionary or the OED are telling me to do so. However, when chatting with my friends I do it all the time. And they do it, too.

Could you justify why should my friends and I care to spell it "your" at all times?

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So, looking at the first posts in this thread again, I just noticed the topic digressed from the second post to whether "give me it" is grammatical or not. I think it should be clear by now that at least in some dialects, including spats's, it's ungrammatical to say "give me it". Assuming we're analyzing an English dialect like this, could you guys get to discuss his argument?

(Unfortunately I can't add anything since I don't understand this typological stuff.)

[Travis B.]

That construction is ungrammatical with pronouns IMI,

It's not ungrammatical for many as we've seen in this thread though. See the responses of the three natives I asked above, who all found it grammatical (but differed on the sociolinguistics). All of them are from Greater Vancouver.

So? Are you going to tell us it's wrong to find this construction unacceptable?

This sort of "argument" makes me wonder how much is based on the "anything goes" anti-prescriptivist school of linguistics, and how much is based on people just not caring as long as they (as a fluent speaker) can understand the intent.

Or in other words, how things are done in your English variety is "right", and how things are done in other English varieties where they differ is a matter of people "just not caring as long as they can understand the intent". Right......

[Yng]

I have 'John gave me it' and 'John gave it me' in free variation, with the latter more common.

To me, both of those are okay grammar-wise, but the first means that John gave something to you, while the second means that John gave you to something. (Though I don't think that would come up much...)

Yes, that's what they SHOULD mean, by standard rules - but the latter form means the same as the first form.

[Declan]

"John gave me it" is perfectly grammatical, and probably the preferred phrasing, in SSBE. Well, not preferred, because of the 'it' - it's not unusual to say 'gave it to me' to make it clear when there are two pronouns. But with a noun rather than a pronoun, it's definitely preferred - "I gave John the documents", not "I gave the documents to John".

I've noticed this in audio-books a lot. "John gave me it" is ungrammatical for me, "John gave it me" extremely odd, and probably something I have never said in my life. "I gave John the documents" I would probably say, though I think I say "I gave the documents to John" more.