ditransitive — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Of a class of verbs which take both a direct and an indirect object. An example is 'give', which entails a giver (subject), a gift (direct object) and a receiver (indirect object).

   Usage

   • not-comparable

   Synonyms

   doubly transitive

   Related words

   ambitransitiveintransitivetransitive

   Broader terms

   transitive

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   So far, we have considered only transitive Verbs which take a single NP Complement. However, there are a subset of transitive Verbs (known as ditransitive Verbs) which can take two NP Complements, as illustrated in (16) below (where the NP Complements are bracketed): (16) (a) John gave [Mary] [a present] (16) (b) The postman handed [me] [a parcel] (16) (c) He showed [her] [his credentials] (16) (d) He sent [his mother] [some flowers] (16) (e) Never promise [anyone] [anything] The relevant subcategorisation frame for Verbs used in this construction will be [— NP NP], indicating that they can take two NP Complements.

   The verb gave is sometimes called ditransitive: It can take two nouns following the verb, as in Lana gave the dog a stick. Here, the noun dog is the recipient of gave, and the object or patient of gave is the noun stick. The first post-verbal noun for ditransitive verbs is sometimes called its indirect object.

Noun

1. A verb that takes both an object and an indirect object.