[Ads-l] Loss of the English dative

[Herb Stahlke]

The Association for the Teaching of English Grammar list ATEG-L has
discussed this a number of times, and it appears that this lack of
consensus on grammatical terminology is one of the bigger reasons why some
linguistically informed view of English grammar is not taught in the
schools.  And list members of various theoretical persuasions are unable to
come together on a proposal for a common set of terms, since such a set is
tied intimately to one's views on grammar.

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 10:15 PM, W Brewer <brewerwa at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Loss of the English dative
>
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>
> Seems to be a confusion over terminology. Use of <dative> in Indo-European
> studies is different modern theoretical use of the word <dative>. In IES,
> <dative> is two or three paradigmatic slots filled by words from various
> declensions; it is a <case> covering a number of functions, with a specific
> set of suffixes. Modern use seems to give it a strictly benefactive
> function, regardless of form. (This seems to be true of all modern
> borrowings of Classical terminology, which makes life so exciting.) Then
> when you throw in eighteenth-century English grammar terms, we know that we
> still haven't all agreed upon a common metalanguage to discuss language.
>
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