Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T14:36:00.420Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Generating indirect objects in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

D. J. Allerton
Affiliation:
Department of General Linguistics, University of Manchester

Extract

It is a common experience in language study (and elsewhere) that a consideration of a few carefully chosen examples can allow us a neat, simple, even elegant solution; but that the more data we examine, the more complex the whole question becomes. In some such cases we are tempted to abandon discrete categories in favour of a ‘squish’ (Ross, 1972, 1975). English indirect object constructions seem to present this kind of problem.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allerton, D. J. (1975). Deletion and proform reduction. JL 11. 213238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allerton, D. J. (in press). The notion of ‘givenness’ and its relation to presuppositions and to theme. To appear in the Journal of Pragmancs.Google Scholar
Bach, E. (1968). Nouns and noun phrases. In Bach, E. & Harms, R. T. (eds), Universals in linguistic theory. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 91124.Google Scholar
Bolinger, D. L. (1961). Syntactic blends and other matters. Lg 37. 366381.Google Scholar
Burt, M. K. (1971). From deep to surface structure. New York: Harper Row.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1964). Degrees of grammaticalness. In Fodor, J.A., & Katz, J. J. (eds), The structure of language. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 384389.Google Scholar
Cruse, D. A. (1973). Some thoughts on agentivity. JL 9. 1124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, C. J. (1965). Indirect object constructions in English and the ordering of transformations. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. J. (1972). On generativity. In Peters, S. (ed.) Goals of linguistic theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 120.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. (1970). Language structure and language function. In Lyons, J. (ed.). New horizons in linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Ross, J. R. (1972). The category squish: Endstation Hauptwort. PCLS 8.Google Scholar
Ross, J. R. (1975). Clause matiness. In Keenan, E.L. (ed.) Formal semantics of natural language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 422475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar