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(Michael S) #1
Basic Clause Patterns

f. Anderson bought souvenirs for us.


One drawback of the Dative Test is that it does not distinguish between
the Recipient and Goal meanings of the preposition to. Only the former is
relevant in this context, so (122a) reflects pattern 2 with a verb modifier, not
pattern 5:


(122)a. Anderson sent the children to the lake.
b. *Anderson sent the lake the children.


Also, the test will not work with certain fixed indirect object construc-
tions:


(123)a. It cost me a fortune.
b. *It cost a fortune to/for me.
c. He gave me a ring. (ambiguous)
d. He gave a ring to me. (unambiguous)


The object complement construction has no such paraphrase:


(124) *We elected president to/for him.

Moreover, we can apply passive to the IO in pattern 5 clauses, just as we
can to the DO in pattern 4:


(125) I was given the roses by Warthog.

Some varieties of English even allow the direct object of pattern 5 clauses
to be passivized:


(126) The roses were given Susie by Warthog.

The object complement NP in the VP of pattern 4 clauses cannot be pas-
sivized:


(127) *President was elected him by the voters.

A final restriction on this pattern is that the direct object NP cannot be a
pronoun:

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