194 Timothy Colleman
d. Magda kupiła Wojtkowi książkę.
Magda:NOM bought Wojtek:DAT book:ACC
‘Magda bought Wojtek a book.’
e. Krystyna otworzyła Oli drzwi
Krystyna:NOM opened Ola:DAT door:ACC
‘Krystyna opened the door for Ola.’
f. Krystyna odrobiła Oli lekcje.
Krystyna:NOM did Ola:DAT homework:ACC
‘Krystyna did Ola’s homework for her’
As shown by some of the English glosses of the Polish examples, the Eng-
lish ditransitive or double object argument structure construction can also
encode certain events of benefaction, next to events of caused reception.
This use of the ditransitive argument structure pattern to encode events
which involve a beneficiary rather than a (prototypical) recipient will
henceforth be referred to as the benefactive ditransitive construction. It
should be noted, however, that, semantically, this English benefactive con-
struction is more restricted than the above mentioned Polish construction, as
illustrated by the marked difference in acceptability between the clauses in
(2a–b) and (2c–d) below.
(2) a. Ala sewed me a dress.
b. Magda bought Wojtek a book.
c. Krystyna opened Ola the door.
d. Krystyna did Ola the homework.
This can be described in terms of an “intended reception” constraint. Sev-
eral authors have pointed out that for the ditransitive to be possible in Eng-
lish, the beneficiary has to be involved as the projected recipient of the
patient. In (2a), for instance, Ala’s action is aimed at the transfer of a sewed
dress to the speaker (see, e.g., Allerton 1978, Wierzbicka 1986, Jackendoff
1990: 195–196, Langacker 1991: 360, Nisbet 2005). In terms of Kittilä’s
(2005) distinction between several subtypes of benefactive events, the Eng-
lish ditransitive only accommodates events of “recipient-benefaction”, i.e.
events in which the nature of benefaction is such that the beneficiary ulti-
mately receives something by instigation of the agent. (2c–d) involve
another kind of benefaction, viz. “deputive” or “substitutive” benefaction
(i.e., the agent carries out an action instead of the beneficiary) and such
substitutive beneficiaries cannot appear as the first object of the ditransitive