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(1) That car should last you for ten years.

(2) That car should last you ten years.

I think these two mean the same thing.

In (1), the verb 'last' is clearly monotransitive.

How about the verb 'last' in (2)?

Is it monotransitive or ditransitive?

EDIT

This question is clearly different from the earlier question. Not only is the verb involved different, but the construction following the verb is different (e.g, unlike in the earlier question, there's the optional "for" following the verb).

Moreover, none of the four answers to the earlier question even solve its own problem. The highest scoring answer has only two votes when the question itself has as many as six votes. So, I don't know how any of the four answers that don't even solve its own problem can possibly be said to solve the problem in my question that has a clearly distinct problem.

Now, I don't know what Edwin Ashworth means by "John Lawler's analysis". If by that Edwin means John's comments to one answer there, John did mention something about "commercial transaction verb", which does not include the verb 'last' in any way.

Finally, Edwin says in his comment, "On some analyses, it's debatable whether 'you' should be considered a DO." I don't think that saying that it's debatable is answering any question.

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JK2
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    Possible duplicate of Is this a direct object or predicate complement? (see John Lawler's analysis). On some analyses, it's debatable whether 'you' should be considered a DO. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 10 '17 at 20:56
  • I would classify you as dative and (for) ten years as adverbial, no transitivity needed. – Anonym Mar 10 '17 at 23:36
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    @Anonym English has no dative, so I'm assuming you mean that you is an indirect object. It certainly plays the role of recipient, but indirect objects rarely appear in the absence of a direct object, and then the sense of the sentence provides the missing object. (I told you, for example). – deadrat Mar 11 '17 at 01:42
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    In (1) "last" is monotranstive with "you" as Od and the PP "for ten years" as temporal adjunct. By contrast, in (2) it is ditransitive with "you" as Oi and "ten years" as Od. – BillJ Mar 11 '17 at 08:13
  • @deadrat Well, yes, I do mean indirect object, but from a practical perspective I'm not sure what the difference is, since the indirect object seems always to play a dative role. – Anonym Mar 12 '17 at 21:18
  • If 'you' isn't considered a DO, ('You are lasted 10 years by it' is ungrammatical) and measure phrases aren't considered as objects, 'last' wouldn't even be considered transitive. But BillJ gives an alternative analysis (no doubt the CGEL stance). // The duplicate spells out one view of measure phrases. It's one answer. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 24 '20 at 11:49
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    @EdwinAshworth I don't believe BillJ's comment above is the stance of CGEL, although I could be wrong. – JK2 Feb 29 '24 at 04:23
  • @BillJ Your comment "in (2) it is ditransitive with "you" as Oi and "ten years" as Od", is it based on CGEL? If so, please give me the page number. – JK2 Feb 29 '24 at 04:24
  • @BillJ "That battery charge should last the morning"? Are there any respectable minority opinions that would consider "the morning" there a temporal adjunct? – TimR Feb 29 '24 at 16:17
  • This is different from the you in the ditransitive "I made you king." – DjinTonic Feb 29 '24 at 16:40
  • Consider "It takes the earth (Oi) a little more than 365 days (Od) to travel around the sun". – BillJ Feb 29 '24 at 16:54
  • @BillJ Yes, but to last and to take are rather different types of verbs. Doesn't contemporary descriptive grammar concern itself with such differences when parsing an utterance to decide which role a phrase plays? – TimR Feb 29 '24 at 17:04
  • @DjinTonic You might consider that "made" is monotransitive in "I made you king", where "you" is direct object and "king" is objective predicative complement. – BillJ Feb 29 '24 at 17:12
  • @BillJ Since you don't give me the page number, I don't think it's from CGEL. Re the verb 'take', I think it's quite a different usage. First, you cannot put a preposition before Od: _It takes the earth for* a little more than 365 days to travel around the sun_. Second, if you remove a little more than 365 days and say It takes the earth to travel around the sun, it doesn't make sense or it means an entirely different thing. – JK2 Mar 01 '24 at 00:17
  • @BillJ By contrast, you can put a preposition for in That car should last you ten years and say That car should last you for ten years without changing the meaning of last. You can even use a different preposition phrase as in That car should last you until 2030. Also, you can omit ten years from That car should last you ten years and say That car should last you without changing the meaning of last. – JK2 Mar 01 '24 at 01:50
  • @JK2 Note that, as in most though not all ditransitive clauses, you can omit the indirect object but not the direct object. My example was simply intended to show that measure expressions can be Od. Btw, the infinitival "to travel around the sun" is an adjunct, irrelevant here. Make what you will of CGEL. – BillJ Mar 01 '24 at 07:35
  • "last" is similar to other verbs such as "serve" or "keep", as well as the informal "do": "that car should serve you (for) ten years", "that car should do you ten years". Suggesting "you" is the direct object. Intuitively, omitting "for" is more acceptable with some verbs than others, but I'm not sure if that indicates a different grammatical structure. – Stuart F Mar 01 '24 at 11:07
  • @StuartF I'm not sure in what way "last" and "serve" are similar. In your example, "you" is the recipient of "serve", so it's a direct object and it can't be omitted. But OP's "you" is not the recipient but the beneficiary of "last", and it can be easily omitted. – JK2 Mar 01 '24 at 12:46

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Both forms are perfectly grammatical, both mean the same thing, and I think both share the same structure, too. It's just that "for" is spoken in one case, and implied in the other.

"ten years" doesn't become an extra object. It's an adverbial in both.

Frank Zsoldos
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