Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.51558/2303-4858.2025.13.1.56
More than meets the eye: Toward a reassessment of Old English double accusatives
Juan G. Vázquez-González
; University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain
Abstract
This article offers a corpus-based update of the Accusative-Accusative construction as part of a much-needed reanalysis of Old English double-object complementation. Unlike the better-known Dative-Accusative pattern — the basis for the Modern English ditransitive — double accusatives remain largely ignored because of their extremely low productivity. Using the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, this study extends the body of evidence to a total of 30 verb types and 87 tokens, providing better precision. Apart from relating to speech act verbs and metaphorical transfer, double accusatives are now found operating as theme-recipients, beneficiaries, and, less frequently, as theme-goals or maleficiaries. This investigation proves their continuity through early and late Old English, attestation across many varieties and text types, and use in Latin-to-English morphosyntactic translation
Keywords
Old English ditransitives; Nom-Acc-Acc subconstruction; Dictionary of Old English Corpus; Diachronic Construction Grammar; morphosyntactic translation
Hrčak ID:
341868
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2025.
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