The position of direct and indirect objects of selected English ditransitive verbs

The subject of the present thesis is an analysis of English ditransitive verbs, i.e. verbs that need complementation by two objects. The main focus is the position of the objects depending on their realization and factors influencing their ordering. There are four different types of realization distinguished: 1. both Od and Oi/Oprep realized by nouns; 2. Od realized by a noun and Oi/Oprep realized by a pronoun; 3. Od realized by a pronoun and Oi/Oprep realized by a noun; 4. both objects realized by pronouns. The position of the objects is assumed to be influenced by the principle of end-focus, i.e. clause element carrying less communicative dynamism (given information) tends to precede element carrying more communicative dynamism (new information), and by the principle of end-weight, i.e. the tendency to put longer and more complex (premodified or postmodified) clause elements towards the end of a clause. As new information is often stated more fully, the principle of end-focus and end- weight often reinforce each other. The analytical part is a corpus-based analysis of 120 examples for two ditransitive verbs, buy and sell, with 60 examples for each verb. The examples have been excerpted from the British National Corpus leaving out examples unsuitable for the analysis (e.g. passive voice). The..