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LINGUIST List 21.2029

Thu Apr 29 2010

Qs: Indirect Objects in the Form of Prepositional Phrases

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        1.    Muhammad Shakir, Indirect Objects in the Form of Prepositional Phrases
Message 1: Indirect Objects in the Form of Prepositional Phrases
Date: 27-Apr-2010
From: Muhammad Shakir <true.friend2004gmail.com>
Subject: Indirect Objects in the Form of Prepositional Phrases
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Dear LINGUIST List subscribers,

I am working on ditransitive verbs, which is a corpus based study. I am
having difficulty while dealing with indirect objects in the form of a
prepositional phrase and especially "for-NP" constructions. It is very
confusing for me to consider an inanimate prepositional object as
beneficiary/recipient.

Below are three examples I've taken from my corpus of Pakistani
English:
1. "...run enterprise writes proposals for small technology projects..."
2. "...reform through writing plays for different channels..."
3. "...a has already written it for us before hand..."

These are raw concordance lines but the point can be understood
easily.
- In 1, the recipient/beneficiary is an in-animate thing, can it be an
indirect object here?
- In 2, it is bit clearer because 'channels' can receive something.
- In 3, the indirect object is an animate pronoun so it is not confusing
for me.

I'll be very grateful if some help and explanation is provided regarding
prepositional indirect objects, and the criteria to judge whether a
prepositional object is an indirect object also. Any links to
material/books would also be appreciated.

Best regards,
Muhammad Shakir

Linguistic Field(s): Syntax
                            Text/Corpus Linguistics
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