An Event Structure-based Study Of English Ditransitive Constructions

The English ditransitive construction（EDC）refers to the structure that includes two objects simultaneously.Its form of expression is relatively consistent,that is,“V+O₁（indirect object）+O₂（direct object）”,but its constructional meaning varies depending on the verb type involved.The traditional research of such kind of constructions produced fruitful results with some problems unsettled,including the reasons for the use of to or for in the positional conversion of the two objects.This study,based on the event structure theory,the study of the arrangement of sub-events like CAUSE,ACT,or BECOME within the semantic representation of a verb,makes an in-depth analysis of the constructional meaning and the semantic characteristics of EDCs,as well as the conditions and constraints for the conversion of the two objects in EDCs through the schemes of the decomposition of sub-events in the event structure of EDCs and the feature analysis of the event participants,so as to reveal the inherent laws of EDCs in a more concise way.The study finds that the constructional meaning of EDCs can be described by the sub-events contained in the related verbs.Specifically,it can be divided into three types.The first type is represented by give,which contains two sub-events:“physical movement”and“result”;the second type is represented by make,which contains three sub-events:“direct production”,“physical movement”and“result”;the third type is represented by envy,which contains relatively more complex sub-events,usually two,one of them being“psychological movement”.The common sub-event of the above three types is“movement”.From the perspective of the projection from semantics to syntax,all of the above three types of EDCs can be expressed by the structure of“V+Indirect Object+Direct Object”.However,from the perspective of the syntactic conversion concerning the relative positions of the above two objects,each of them has its characteristics,which can be described as follows（excluding the sub-event of“result”of the movement for the time being）:The first type is the single sub-event EDCs based on the movement of the entity（explicit event）,which allows for the use of the preposition to followed by the indirect object.The second type is the double sub-events EDCs based on the source of the entity（explicit event）and the movement of the entity（implicit event）,which allows for the use of the preposition for followed by the indirect object.The third type is a kind of EDCs represented by a single psychological event without the physical movement of the entity,which cannot be converted.Of course,the syntactic conversion is also constrained by the following factors.The first is the characteristics of the event participants.The second is the maneuverability of the entity.The third is aesthetic factors.The fourth is the context.Moreover,the syntactic conversion can also lead to some changes in the constructional meaning and the function of EDCs.According to the specific contexts,it can be the change of the semantic role of the event participants,such as the change from non-agent to agent,and it can also be the different readings of the same converted construction.At the same time,there can also be changes in the information structure.Finally,the choice of construction in concrete use is not only related to the cognitive reference point of the speaker,but is also closely associated with how people treat the event and the non-event meaning of the theme involved.The observation of events in this study is based on semantics and guided by event structure theory,and therefore the research is an innovative application of event structure theory.The results of this study have a good guiding effect on English-based Natural Language Processing and English teaching as well.