Ditransitive Verb - English Usage

English Usage

English has a number of generally ditransitive verbs, such as give, grant, and tell and many transitive verbs that can take an additional argument (commonly a beneficiary or target of the action), such as pass, read, bake, etc.:

He gave Mary ten dollars.

He passed Paul the ball.

Jean read him the books.

She is baking him a cake.

English grammar allows for these sentences to be written alternately with a preposition (to or for):

He gave ten dollars to Mary.

He passed the ball to Paul.

Jean read the books to/for him.

She is baking a cake for him., etc.

The latter form is grammatically correct in every case, but in some dialects the former (without a preposition) is considered ungrammatical, or at least unnatural-sounding, when both objects are pronouns (as in He gave me it).

Sometimes one of the forms is perceived as wrong for idiosyncratic reasons (idioms tend to be fixed in form) or the verb simply dictates one of the patterns and excludes the other:

*Give a break to me (grammatical, but always phrased Give me a break)

*He introduced Susan his brother (usually phrased He introduced his brother to Susan)

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.

Let's catch us some fish (which might also be phrased Let's catch some fish for ourselves))

Again, this usage is idiomatic and therefore arbitrary, learnt only with experience.