Karl,
Thanks for adding the notion "licensing" to this discussion. It does
help to clarify the problem of obligatory vs. optional, one of the
problems I run into when presenting this material in class. Have you
found that undergrad English majors pick up licensing, or do they find
it difficult?
Herb
On the required/optional problem with complements:
Linguists talk about verbs _licensing_ (i.e., allowing) certain
complements. In other words, the presence of a particular verb is
necessary to license (but not always to mandate) the complements. Hence
"She slept the bed" is ungrammatical, because "slept" doesn't license an
object. Adjuncts, on the other hand, simply appear without license,
whatever the verb subtype. The only restrictions are semantic. Some
complements are obligatory, of course. That's the easy case where their
complement-hood is unambiguous, but we don't need to define
complement-hood by whether or not something is required. Indirect
objects are licensed, but rarely, if ever, obligatory. Omissibility,
therefore, doesn't really tell us whether or not something is a
complement.
A useful test of complement-hood is "do so" substitution. If it can be
included in the scope of "do so," it's a complement. For example,
I bought our daughter presents for Christmas, and my wife did so for
Chanukah.
*I bought our daughter presents for Christmas, and my wife did so our
son.
In other words, the IO is a complement (although it's certainly
grammatical to say "I bought presents for Christmas"), but the time
expression is an adjunct. And when a verb license a both the IO-DO and
the DO-PP pattern, the PP is a complement too.
Applying the test your 'move' sentence, it seems pretty definite that
"to the porch" is a complement:
I moved the ladder to the porch, and--after my wife put it in the
garage--I did so again.
*I moved the ladder to the porch, and then I did so to the living room.
By the same test, I think the dialectal sentences too are ditransitive
(although there are clearly additional restrictions on semantic roles
that you note.)
Karl
Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College
Craig Hancock wrote:
> Herb,
> It may come down to a difference in definitions, but I would use
> /indirect object/ to account for participants in sentences that seem
> grammatical without it. (/I baked a cake. I baked the kids a cake. I
> composed a sonata. I composed my wife a sonata.)/ /The kids/ and /my
> wife/ are beneficiaries of the process, and so indirect objects, at
> least in my frame of reference. Both pass the structural to or for
> test. /I baked a cake for the kids/. /I composed a sonata for my
> wife./ If I /baked myself a cake/ or /baked me a cake,/ I would
> include both /myself/ and /me/ as indirect objects. /Me/ just feels
> colloquial and informal.
> We have to be a little careful about composing examples that might
> never be used in practice. I think, in my case at least, I would
> substitute /me/ for /myself/ (within this dialect) only when it means
> /for/ or /to myself/. I wouldn't say /I hated me in the morning/. But
> i would say /I'm gonna run me a/ /good race/, in part because it adds
> the meaning that I am doing this for myself. I'm/ gonna/ /compose me a
> sonnet for my wife /is a theoretical example that doesn't feel right
> to me, just as /I'm gonna run me a good race for the team/ seems
> awkward as well. If I'm gonna win me a good race, then I expect to win
> me some acclaim. I am doing it for myself.
> I have always had a problem with "obligatory element" as definition
> for a verb complement, if only because context creates situations
> where the element doesn't need to be explicit.
> In /I moved the ladder to the porch/, is /to the porch/ modifier or
> complement? To me, it's a complement,. though /I moved the ladder/ is
> perfectly grammatical. Similarly, I can /teach blue/s /guitar/ or
> /give a pint of blood/, both of which can easily be expanded with
> receiver type participants. (You can't teach guitar without teaching
> it to someone, can't give blood without giving it to someone, but I
> don't feel obliged to fill in that blank every time I use the verb.)
> Am I misunderstanding what is intended by "obligatory"?
>
> Craig
>
> Stahlke, Herbert F.W. wrote:
>
>> Craig,
>>
>> You could argue that it's ditransitive, but the IO is not obligatory.
>> You could also argue that the IO is deletable if it refers to the
>> subject, which would get around my objection. But this pronoun gets
>> used in the same way with verbs that a pretty clearly not
ditransitive:
>>
>> I'm going to run me a better race this time.
>>
>> I'm going to compose me a sonata for my wife.
>>
>> I'm going to drink me enough beer to blot out the whole #### game.
>>
>> This use of the pronoun provides additional emphasis on the subject
>> but doesn't act as a complement to the verb.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> Herb,
>> You leave me curious on this one. Substitution for the reflexive
>> pronoun I follow, but why is it not an IO in that case?
>> I'm going to get her a new car.
>> I'm going to get myself a new car.
>> I'm going to get me a new car.
>> I think we understand ditransitive structures as involving three
>> participants (entities), but do we really need to include them in all
>> statements? (I gave at the office. I sent a nice card. And so on?)
>> I don't think I'm misreading the dialect, since it's in my own
>> repertoire from the blue collar streets of South Jersey. (I'm gonna
>> get me a case of cold beer and watch the #### game.) I'm not sure
>> these guys were influenced by Latin or Greek.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>> Stahlke, Herbert F.W. wrote:
>>
>>This is not really an indirect object construction. Rather,
Appalachian substitutes the object pronoun for the reflexive. Second,
the first two instances look like they could be interpreted as IOs but
are different in that they, actually all three, are optional, which IOs
never are. Third, there is another construction, rare in Standard
English, called, at least by classical grammarians (Latin and Greek) the
ethical dative. Why "ethical" I've never understood. Rather, they are
a form of reference to the subject without using a reflexive.
>>
>>
>>
>>Herb Stahlke
>>
>>Ball State University
>>
>>
>>
>>ATEG Members,
>>
>>
>>
>>I don't know whether anyone has covered this in the lengthy discussion
>>
>>of indirect objects, but in Appalachian dialects, especially, but also
>>
>>in the dialect of many South Midland speakers, indirect object are
quite
>>
>>prevalent in speech. You hear structures like:
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm going to get me a switch and whip you.
>>
>> I got me a new car today.
>>
>> He had him a good time at the dance.
>>
>>
>>
>>Is there anybody else out there who has noticed the same constructions
>>
>>in other dialects?
>>
>>
>>
>>Best wishes,
>>
>>
>>
>>Marshall
>>
>>Eastern Kentucky University
>>
>>
>>
>>Edward Vavra wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> As an instructor of Freshman comp at the college level, I found
>>>
>>>this thread on indirect objects very interesting, especially since I
>>>
>>>have also been struggling with the teaching of grammar for almost a
>>>
>>>quarter of a century. What interested me most is that I literally
tell
>>>
>>>my students that I do not care if they label indirect objects as
direct.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As many contributors to this thread noted, students enter our
>>>
>>>classrooms with almost no formal knowledge of grammar. As some
>>>
>>>contributors noted, indirect objects give students few, if any,
>>>
>>>practical problems. Meanwhile, many students have problems with
>>>
>>>subject/verb agreement because they cannot identify verbs.
(Two-thirds
>>>
>>>of my students enter the course unable to identify "is," "are," "was"
>>>
>>>and "were" as verbs.) Thus, to me, it seems absolutely senseless to
try
>>>
>>>to teach them to identify indirect objects.
>>>
>>> I must admit that, in trying to develop a consistent, systematic
>>>
>>>approach to teaching grammar (KISS) that begins in grade three and
ends
>>>
>>>in grade eleven, I have for several years been working in neutral in
my
>>>
>>>own courses. I had material that I used with my students, but I
>>>
>>>considered abandoning the teaching of grammar because it was not
working
>>>
>>>to my satisfaction. In end of course evaluations, however, my
students
>>>
>>>overwhelmingly voted that I should not abandon it; instead they
wanted
>>>
>>>more examples and explanations. I have therefore been revising that
>>>
>>>material. See:
>>>
>>>http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/ENL111/Syntax/50Lessons/index.htm
<http://home.pct.edu/%7Eevavra/ENL111/Syntax/50Lessons/index.htm>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The new approach is costing me a lot of time, and it has been
>>>
>>>driving the tutors in our Tutoring Center crazy, but more students
seem
>>>
>>>not only to be getting it, but also to be appreciating it. (Of
course,
>>>
>>>some students simply don't do the work, but there is little I can do
>>>
>>>about that.) What I want to suggest here, however, is that students
>>>
>>>appreciate it because we begin with the psycholinguistic model, not
with
>>>
>>>grammar. The approach also focuses on analyzing real, randomly
selected
>>>
>>>sentences, and not on learning definitions of grammatical terms. Thus
>>>
>>>students are studying how their minds, and the minds of their
readers,
>>>
>>>are processing sentences. The most interesting, and most important
work
>>>
>>>involves clauses. The Fifty exercises are not yet complete, but if
you
>>>
>>>look at them, you will see that we get into questions of
clause-boundary
>>>
>>>errors, style, and logic fairly quickly. This is what catches
students'
>>>
>>>attention and makes the grammar meaningful to them. They are
>>>
>>>particularly fascinated when they see that the errors they have been
>>>
>>>making (such as comma-splices) can be resolved in a number of
different
>>>
>>>ways (colons, dashes, semicolons, subordinate conjunctions), each of
>>>
>>>which changes the focus of the sentence.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As with the KISS Grammar site, anyone is free to use, adapt, etc.
>>>
>>>the materials I have on the web, and suggestions are always welcome.
>>>
>>>Ed V.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
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>>>
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>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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