Ditransitive verb


In grammar, a ditransitive verb is a verb which takes a subject and two objects which refer to a theme and a recipient. According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be called direct and indirect, or primary and secondary. This is in contrast to monotransitive verbs, which take only one object, a direct or primary object.
In languages which mark grammatical case, it is common to differentiate the objects of a ditransitive verb using, for example, the accusative case for the direct object, and the dative case for the indirect object. In languages without morphological case the objects are distinguished by word order and/or context.

In English

English has a number of generally ditransitive verbs, such as give, grant, and tell and many transitive verbs that can take an additional argument, such as pass, read, bake, etc.:
Alternatively, English grammar allows for these sentences to be written with a preposition :
The latter form is grammatically correct in every case, but in some dialects the former is considered ungrammatical, or at least unnatural-sounding, when the direct object is a pronoun.
Sometimes one of the forms is perceived as wrong for idiosyncratic reasons or the verb simply dictates one of the patterns and excludes the other:
In certain dialects of English, many verbs not normally treated as ditransitive are allowed to take a second object that shows a beneficiary, generally of an action performed for oneself.
This construction could also be an extension of a reflexive construction.
In addition, certain ditransitive verbs can also act as monotransitive verbs:

Passive voice

Many ditransitive verbs have a passive voice form which can take a direct object. Contrast the active and two forms of the passive:
Active:
Passive:
Not all languages have a passive voice, and some that do have one don't allow the indirect object of a ditransitive verb to be promoted to subject by passivization, as English does. In others like Dutch a passivization is possible but requires a different auxiliary: "krijgen" instead of "worden".
E.g. schenken means "to donate, to give":

Attributive ditransitive verbs

Another category of ditransitive verb is the attributive ditransitive verb in which the two objects are semantically an entity and a quality, a source and a result, etc. These verbs attribute one object to the other. In English, make, name, appoint, consider, turn into and others are examples:
The first object is a direct object. The second object is an object complement.
Attributive ditransitive verbs are also referred to as resultative verbs.

Morphosyntactic alignment

The morphosyntactic alignment between arguments of monotransitive and ditransitive verbs is explained below. If the three arguments of a typical ditransitive verb are labeled D, T and R, these can be aligned with the Agent and Patient of monotransitive verbs and the Subject of intransitive verbs in several ways, which are not predicted by whether the language is nominative–accusative, ergative–absolutive, or active–stative. Donor is always or nearly always in the same case as Agent, but different languages equate the other arguments in different ways: