Timeline for Is 20 dollars here a direct object or a predicate complement? 'This book cost me 20 dollars.'
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
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| Jan 30, 2021 at 16:08 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | I've seen ACGEL (Quirk et al) and CGEL. I suppose ACGEL and CaGEL can't be misunderstood. Check Huddlestone :) | |
| Jan 30, 2021 at 12:55 | comment | added | Shoe | @Edwin Ashworth. It's the Huddlestone & Pullum tome. But I've just checked, and Aarts in The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar has Quirk as CGEL and H&P as CaGEL. I'll need to be explicit in future. | |
| Jan 28, 2021 at 13:29 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | @Shoe is that Quirk et al or Huddleston et al? | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 20:00 | comment | added | F.E. | +1. Since the 2002 CGEL opines it to be an object, it would appear that your position would seem to be a reasonable one. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 17:57 | comment | added | WS2 | This book cost me my reputation? | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 17:23 | comment | added | John Lawler | If "object status" were a binary state this might be true; but in fact every test passed or failed tests a slightly different variable in the concept of "object", which -- in the final analysis -- is a semantic type that depends almost entirely on -- and consists almost entirely of -- the semantic categories imposed by the transitive predicate concerned, and the type and degree of transitivity of the individual sentence. Verb-object semantics is fractal down as far as I've been able to trace it. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 17:02 | comment | added | Shoe | The CGEL's analysis of passivisation (p1432) has the example sentence: A packet of cigarettes costs around seven dollars. Other verbs exemplified in this section are boast, contain, hold and lack. The CGEL continues: Because the objects here cannot be externalised by passivisation they differ sharply from prototypical objects. The view taken here, however, is that the resistance of the verbs to passivisation does not provide convincing grounds for saying that the post-verbal NPs are not objects: passivisation does not provide either a necessary or a sufficient condition for object status. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 16:55 | comment | added | John Lawler | Another article explaining the Commercial Transaction frame and its local cases focusses on the strange words associated with it: value, worth, cost, and price. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 16:54 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Using different polysemes [different allowable types of objects] for 'teach', one could argue that 'I taught maths' and 'I taught children' both have direct objects. Then 'I taught children maths' must be an example of the first (taking subject as direct object) polyseme, with 'children' an indirect object for this polyseme. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 16:04 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | I've been in a . . . let's call it a discussion . . . on this point before. Terminology varies. Some demand only a distributional requirement for a D.O. (I've heard this called a 'syntactic D.O.', but this is rather a misnomer, as:) Some also demand that constituency tests are satisfied (eg passivisation '$20 dollars was cost by ...'; it-substitution 'did it cost it?'). Some at least suggest that there is also a notional constraint (as rogermue says, 'With numbers or measurements one has the feeling "object" isn't the appropriate term. The book does not effect an action on " 20 dollars". '). | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 15:46 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | @John Lawler How does the passivisation test work with 'All had an axe to grind' and 'All had a good time'? (Fascinating article; if we get snow, I'll give it the attention it looks to deserve. Thank you.) | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 15:43 | comment | added | John Lawler | No, it's not a direct object. It's a measure phrase and can't be passivized, for instance: *100 kilos was weighed by Bill and *$20 was cost by this book are both ungrammatical. Cost is a commercial transaction verb, with special syntax. | |
| Jan 4, 2015 at 15:22 | history | answered | Jon Hanna | CC BY-SA 3.0 |