noun
- Plural of ditransitive; verbs that take two objects (a direct object and an indirect object), or the grammatical category of such verbs.
Usage: linguistics term; also called double-object verbs
Examples
- In English, ditransitives like 'give' require both a recipient and a thing given.
- The verb 'send' is one of the most common ditransitives in the language.
- Linguists study ditransitives to understand how languages encode multiple arguments.
- The sentence 'She gave him a book' contains a ditransitive verb with two objects.
- Not all languages handle ditransitives in the same way.