"laud" as a dative alternation verb

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> >Jennifer Ludden, on NPR's Morning Edition, 11/11/04, of Yasser Arafat:
> >"...but Palestinians lauded him a hero".
> >
> >this moves "laud" into one of the subtypes of dative alternation verbs
> >(Levin, English Verb Classes and Alternations, section 2.1),
> >specifically the "non-alternating double object" subtype (Levin, (119)
> >on p. 47), lacking a prepositional alternative.  by its semantics,
> >"laud" seems to straddle three of levin's subsubtypes:
> >   Appoint verbs: designate, ordain, proclaim, elect,...
> >   Dub verbs: call, decree, pronounce, term,...
> >   Declare verbs: adjudge, declare, judge,...
> >but syntactically it looks like an Appoint verb, which can take an "as"
> >complement:
> >   designate/ordain/proclaim/elect him (as) a representative
> >compare:
> >   laud/praise/celebrate/honor him as a hero.
> >
> >a google search on
> >   "lauded him" -as -for
> >pulls up no examples parallel to the Arafat example.  i judge the other
> >praise verbs to be even worse than "laud" in the double-object
> >construction, but then what do i know?  anyone have similar examples?
>
>I coaxed these examples out of Google: ....

It's perfectly logical.

First, "hail" means about the same as "call" (e.g., "hail a cab", or "Lt.
Uhura, open a hailing frequency"). We are familiar with "hail him as a
hero" in the tired English of the past ... but the "as" is clearly
superfluous in the vibrant post-literate English of the New Millennium: if
we can "call him a hero" we can "hail him a hero", right?

And there are 45 unique Google hits for <<"hailed him a hero">> for example.

Then since "laud" means about the same as "hail" in this context we can
also "laud him a hero", right?

Soon there will be many Google hits for this too.

-- Doug Wilson