Ditransitive verb

Abstract: The present paper investigates the emergence of local norms in Indian English at the level of verb complementation, an area which so far has not attracted much attention in research into New Englishes. In attempting to describe the verb-complementational profile of Indian English, we offer a pilot study which combines a descriptive aim and a methodological aim. At the descriptive level, the present article focuses on ditransitive verbs and their complementation and addresses two related questions: (1) To what extent do the frequency and distribution of complementation patterns of specific ditransitive verbs (e.g. give) differ between Indian English and British English? (2) To what extent is the basic ditransitive pattern with two object noun phrases (e.g. in he sent Mary his warmest wishes) associated with different verbs in British English and Indian English? The present paper reveals that in both regards there are clear and identifiable differences in verb complementation between the two varieties. At the methodological level, this pilot study combines the use of balanced and representative subcorpora from the International Corpus of English (ICE) with the in-depth analysis of a much larger database that has been extracted from the Internet archive of the daily Indian newspaper The Statesman. This makes it possible to also detect examples of low-frequency constructions in Indian English, e.g. sporadic cases of ditransitive complementation of verbs such as advise, gift and impart.

Abstract: Spanish-speaking (SS) children with language impairment (LI) present with deficits in morphology and verb argument structure. These language areas may be useful for clinical identification of affected children. This study aimed to evaluate the discrimination accuracy of spontaneous language measures with SS preschoolers to tease out what combination of grammatical measure(s) were responsible for the LI deficits, and to determine the role of verb argument structure and syntactic complexity in identifying SS children with LI. Two sets of experiments were conducted on the spontaneous language samples of SS preschoolers with and without LI using discriminant function analyses. The study found that (a) mean length of utterance in words (MLUW) and ungrammaticality index in combination are fair to good discriminators of preschoolers with LI; (b) a morphology model combining correct use of articles, verbs, and clitics fairly discriminates LI children but may miss children whose language has limited syntactic complexity; and (c) semantic–syntactic complexity measures, such as MLUW, theme argument omissions, and ditransitive verb use, should be considered in the assessment of Spanish LI. The children who were bilingual and Spanish dominant in the study were classified as accurately as the Spanish-only children.

Abstract: Recent studies in usage-based linguistics have found that construction learning is more effective when input is skewed toward a prototypical exemplar of the construction, thereby reflecting the frequency distribution in natural language. This study investigates the extent to which a prototypical ditransitive verb with high frequency ( give) facilitates the acquisition of the English ditransitive construction in Korean children learning English in a community in which exposure to English is rare outside of the formal classroom setting. Six classes were randomly assigned to either a skewed frequency group, where the input was skewed toward give, or a balanced frequency group, where the input was evenly distributed among the training ditransitive verbs. This experiment found little evidence for the facilitative effects of skewed input on construction learning. Instead, the results suggest that construction learning in this situation is superior with a more balanced set of verbs rather than a focus on a single prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper focuses on the constructions in which the verb, as the nucleus of the clause, is accompanied by three core arguments. In this paper, my purpose is to examine and establish the hierarchical relations between the two objects in ditransitive clauses in Purepecha (formerly known as Tarascan). The central point of discussion is the asymetric alignment which is observed between the two object arguments of the verb. The hierarchy of the two objects is revealed by the morphology and by syntactic accessibility to certain functions or particular processes. The participant, defined as preeminent, shows the greatest proximity to, or intimacy with, the verb. Syntactically, this is the object that aligns with the object of the transitive construction, independent of its semantic role. In this study I point out that the two objects of the ditransitive verb in purepecha display complex behavior. It reveals a hybrid strategy, showing two different semantic facets: (i) an absence of preeminence, and (ii) a preeminence of the recipient. Purepecha displays two different strategies: (i) absence of distinction, with two sub-types: double accusative at morphological level (case marking, pronominal clitics and pronominal suffix), and double object at syntactic level (topicality, focus, inter-clausal coreference control and relativization); and (ii) possibility of distinguishing a direct object (reflexive, passive, antipassive).