To whom/whom

You're most definitely welcome, paco. (The supposed 'clearness' may have to do with my background in the field of linguistics. That is, my knowledge has a history. It seems as if we have read a great deal of the same papers.)

Incorporation doesn't apply to all ditransitives. Ditransitives are divided into two basic groups: verbs like, 'teach', which allow IO incorporation, and verbs like, 'donate', which are rendered ungrammatical if the IO is incorporated.

They donated money (DO) to the church (IO).
*They donated the church (IO) money (DO).

As for ditranstive that allow IO incorporation, like the verb WRITE, I'd put my money on the following interpretations:

I wrote her a letter. she is the recipient of my written letter
I wrote a letter to her. I wrote a letter, and she is the recipient

Proximity has perks, and IO incorporation, although it may at first appear to look like something out of quantum mechanics, is nothing more than a simple emphasis tactic. Here you go:

If you want place emphasis on the IO or the DO, then put after the verb. Get it as close as you can, proximity-wise, to that verb. The effects of proximity are evident in all natural systems, even in our society: If you want that promotion, you make sure the boss notices you. The closer bound, the stronger the relationship.

Here's a question you may be able to help me with. (Consider it as food for though.)

Why is the interpretation correct but the sentence ungrammatical?

Sentence: *They donated the church (IO) money (DO).
Interpretation: the church is the recipient of the money

That is, even though the sentence is ungrammatical, speakers can in fact pick up on its intended meaning. How does that happen?

Hi Casi

Thank you for the reply. Again it is very clear. One thing that I had learned but was out of my head when I was writing the previous post is that verbs of French origin can't have the nature of ditransitivity. Your "donate" might be an example. But many people, even among native speakers, would not be able to be conscious about which one is of French-Latin origin and which one is Germanic/Teutonic.

paco

If only our DNA could house such historical data as language change, paco, if only.

I wonder if IO incorporation, or rather the impossibility of, has something to do with the semantics of "donate". For example, "give", which is similar to "donate" in its semantic make up, allows for IO incorporation:

Give the church money
Give money to the church.

With "give", the thematic roles are: Theme (pen) and Goal (me), whereas with "donate", there's a Recipient role instead of Goal: Theme (money) and Recipient (church).

Seems, so far, that IO incorporation is incompatible with ditransitive verbs that subcategorize for Recipeints.

Now all we have to do is find a couple of exceptions.

Don't worry about Thematic roles. We can get by without them. SMILE

I feel the more foreign their L1 to English, the more English learners tend to get stuck to the mud of grammar.

Well, now, isn't that honest to goodness truth? I agree. Moreover, and in my own case, learning Japanese grammar has been an uphill climb for me.

It may be one of the reasons why we Japanese are so bad in speaking skills despite the fact they relatively well know about English.

What I'm about to say might just rock your world. Have you ever consider that short-term memory and long-term memory have more to do with language acquisition than the L2 language itself? For example, if we have to pass a test, we memorize the rules and sadly enough, after the test is done, we seem to forget what we memorized. The information is no longer of any use to us. We use our short term memory in taking the test. But if the test covers a topic important to us, something we like, and maybe something might even major in at university, we try to understand how the rules work, and when we know how, we are better able to generate those rules ourselves, as in Math. We use our long-term memory. The information is important to us, we see a need in not just "learning" the rules but in "acquiring" the rules.

Language acquisition is bit like that. If there's a personal need for the information, the language tends to settle in long-term memory, and if there isn't a personal need for the information, then it settles in short-term memory.

Now, let's go one step further. Let's bring that analogy to the foreground of culture. What if, and this is purely hypothetical, short-term memory processing is more predominant than long-term memory processing in some cultures, and say, in some individuals, as well. In those cultures/people, short-term memory would be quite the efficient system, more so than long-term memory, specifically for processing non-exceptional rule-orientated information (i.e., Math and Science). Short-term memory would be the primary or dominant processor.

Given its architecture, though, it wouldn't be as efficient in processing systems that generate exceptions. That is, exceptions don't fit into the neatly braided structure, so they are teated as additions and sent off to a new area within the short-term memory. They're not treated as part of the system, they're teated as adjunctive knowledge. And trying to marry that knowledge with the system's knowledge results in, you got it, a head-ache. So, in brief, if we (that's you, me, and anyone else) are having difficulty learning a language, no matter the degree of our tenacity, our apparent inability to pick it up as quickly as we acquire other things, may have more to do with how we, ourselves, process information than how that information is fundamentally structured. And the only solution, I see, would be to generate what's possible (non-exceptional rule-orientated information), and to avoid trying to generate the exceptions by memorizing phrases and sentences, which in the end, reminds us that we don't own the language, and that give us grief. Well, at least, me, that is.

Do you feel any essential difference between in the action of "give" in "I gave money to my brother" and that of "donate" in "I donated money to the church"?

Yes, I do. When I donate money to someone, that someone is the recipient of my gift. They benefit from my gift. If I were to incorporate the IO, it would mean the money is the recipient. That's why 1) sounds odd:

1) *I donated Paco to money.
2) I donated money to Paco.

With "give", there isn't a recipient role. There's a goal:

3) I gave Paco money.
4) I gave money to Paco.

The money moved towards Paco. He is, in fact the recipient of the money, but more so the the goal of my giving. You see, "give" implies a reciprocal relationship, whereas "donate" does not. If you donate money to the church, the church is not going to reciprocate that gift in like form.

Does that help?

Thank you, Paco. I enjoy reading your posts.

We might want to open the discussion up to others at this point. Why not post the following?

What's the semantic difference between "give" and "donate"?

See you there!
SMILE