point, we need not discuss thefinal relationship between language
and reality, that is, whether language adopts practices of social reality
or whether human understanding of social reality is conditioned
by the cognitive structures that manifest themselves in language.
It is sufficient for the present purposes to observe that linguistic
structures contain elements that resemble the anthropological laws
of reciprocity.
Somewhat independently of this observation, linguists have also
developed an interest in the phenomenon of ditransitivity. Transitiv-
ity in language means that the verb can have an object. Most verbs are
either intransitive or monotransitive. In addition, some verbs are
ditransitive, that is, they have two objects. Verbs like‘bake’can
be either monotransitive (‘I baked a cake’) or ditransitive (‘I baked
you a cake’). Verbs like‘give’are normally ditransitive, meaning that
‘give’has two objects: the thing (theme, gift) and the recipient. For
instance, in the sentence‘I give you this bread’we have two objects:
the recipient (you) and the thing (this bread). For the sake of simpli-
city, I will treat the syntactic form‘I give this bread to you’ as
synonymous with‘I give you this bread’.^29
Linguistic studies argue that‘give’is both the most common and
most paradigmatic ditransitive verb^30 and can, therefore, be con-
sidered as the cognitive and linguistic model of the issues that need
to be considered in speaking of acts involving two objects. John
Newman has published the most extensive monograph about this
verb.^31 In the following, I will use his linguistic terminology and
adopt many, though not all, of his conclusions. Thefirst issue to
note is that‘give’normally assumes that the giver and the recipient
are persons or at least living beings, whereas the gift given is not. This
is why Newman calls it a‘thing’, while some other textbooks prefer
words like theme or gift. The ditransitive verb‘give’has three argu-
ments, which can be identified as the giver, the thing, and the recipient.
Linguistic regularities establish paradigms that do not rule out all
exceptions. There are cases in which a person is given (e.g.‘I give
this baby to you’) as well as cases in which‘give’may be used in a
seemingly monotransitive fashion (e.g.‘Mary gave a scream’). New-
man makes a distinction between literal andfigurative uses of‘give’
and often interprets non-standard examples as instances offigurative
(^29) For a more extensive discussion, see Saarinen 2010.
(^30) Goldberg 1995; Newman 1996. (^31) Newman 1996.
222 Recognition and Religion