A Contrastive Study Of Ditransitive Construction Between English And Korean

Verbs can be classified into one-place predicate, two-place predicate and three-place predicate. Ditransitive verbs are three-place predicate. Ditransitive construction is formed by three-place predicate, which can be divided into double object construction and dative construction. This paper, from the perspective of Generative Grammar, classifies English and Korean ditransitive verbs with the structures and the semantics. Then it contrasts double object construction and dative construction between English and Korean, which provides evidence for explaining the reasons why ditransitive verbs can form the corresponding constructions.Ditransitive verbs in English and Korean can be classified according to the structures formed by the verbs and their meanings of "give" . English ditranstive verbs can be classified into five types, while Korean ditranstive verbs can only be classified into three types, including the first, the second and the fifth type. Ditransitive construction studied in this paper includes double object construction marked "DP₁ V DP₂ DP₃" inEnglish and "DP₁ DP₂(?)DP₃(?)V" in Korean, and dative construction marked"DP₁ V DP₃to DP₂" in English and "DP₁ DP₂ (?) DP₃(?) V" in Korean.This paper argues that double object construction and dative construction are derived respectively. It analyzes the syntactic features of ditransitive construction on a basis of Harley's theory oh double object construction and dative construction. Then it also uses Xu Sheng-huan's classification and analysis on verbs' meaning of "give" to classify English and Korean ditransitive verbs and explains the reasons of the verbs' having corresponding cosntructions.Ditransitive constructions are formed by different decomposition of ditransitive verbs in English and Korean. When a ditransitive verb is decomposed into CAUSE and P_HAVE, the construction formed by the verb is double object construction. When a ditransitive verb is decomposed into CAUSE and P_LOC, the construction formed by the verb is dative construction. It provides each construction with its meaning.This paper makes a contrastive study of the similarities and differences in English and Korean ditransitive construction and explains the reasons why ditransitive constructions are formed. It is hopefully to provide some evidence to the framework of universal grammar.