What's wrong with "I'll open you the door"?

Question

When I call the buzzer outside my girlfriend's flat, she sometimes says *"I'll open you the door". I correct this to "I'll open the door for you".

I've never heard a native speaker say it the first way, which is why I think it's wrong. But I can't explain why.

There is a pattern in lots of English phrases that would suggest both are correct. A few common examples:

Give the keys to me before you go — Give me the keys before you go
I'll buy a coffee for you at the cafe — I'll buy you a coffee at the cafe
We sent a text to Martin on his birthday — We sent Martin a text on his birthday

The left-hand side is more formal, and the right-hand side is more common in everyday speech.

What do you call this pattern?

What makes the 'open-the-door' sentence an exception?

Come to that, how come it's always "cry me a river", not "cry a river for me"? — FumbleFingers, Nov 07 '12 at 22:07
First thought: It's a bit mean, calling someone a door. Though I guess it could be considered foreplay? — AnnanFay, Nov 08 '12 at 00:37
@Annan "You make a better door than a window!" my gran would say if you blocked her view of the TV. — Iain Samuel McLean Elder, Nov 08 '12 at 00:49
Is English not your girlfriend's native language by any chance? Some European languages prefer this form over the other, for instance in French you usually say "I'll open you the door" ("Je t'ouvrirai/vais t'ouvrir la porte") this might explain it. Being natively french, I sometimes do similar subtle mistakes. — Thomas, Nov 08 '12 at 01:44
@Thomas: Was your use of "do" rather than "make" in the translation of "faire une faute" a deliberate subtle mistake? — Peter Shor, Nov 08 '12 at 02:57
@PeterShor indeed! I had written "commit" before but it felt wrong, and hastily replaced it by "do" instead of "make". Sorry. — Thomas, Nov 08 '12 at 03:33
@Thomas Spanish is her native language. There are more than 10,000 Spanish people in my hometown of Edinburgh (pop. 500,000). You hear Spanglish on the street every day. — Iain Samuel McLean Elder, Nov 08 '12 at 09:53
Is it actually idiomatic to say "call the buzzer"? Wouldn't you rather "sound the buzzer" or something like that? — Tim Pietzcker, Nov 08 '12 at 09:56
@TimPietzcker: many such systems are a telephone with a keypad, which rings the apartment. — horatio, Nov 08 '12 at 15:16
People say all kinds of nonsense when they're not paying attention. I doubt it was a conscious decision to use poor grammar on her part. — Django Reinhardt, Nov 09 '12 at 15:28
I wonder if she's thinking of "I'll show you the door", which is generally said to people leaving an establishment, often less than voluntarily. — Golden Cuy, Nov 10 '12 at 08:49
Ian, though it's been nearly two years, your OP caught my attention. I'd second Thomas's comment about European languages - my wife's German but has been fluent in English for decades. When she's tired, she'll say 'can you open me the door' ... Aside from this construct being preferred in some European languages, as Thomas mentions, I think it's easy to slip because the structure is so similar to things like 'can you give me the ketchup?' — Howard Pautz, Sep 15 '14 at 20:15
"Throw Mama from the train a kiss" was an example of Platt-Deutch sentence construction, from immigrants to Pennsylvania. — Theresa, Sep 01 '18 at 22:07

John Lawler · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-23T00:06:55.790

131

The answer to the presenting question is:

*I'll open you the door.

is ungrammatical because you won't wind up owning the door by virtue of my opening it.

Ordinary bitransitive verbs of transfer (tell, throw, bring, hand, pass, send, etc.), where the direct object (the trajector, semantically) is transferred from the subject (the source) to the indirect object (the goal), normally are subject to the Dative Alternation:

I'll tell/throw/bring/hand/pass/send the answer to him.
I'll tell/throw/bring/hand/pass/send him the answer.

Besides these, however, there's also a Benefactive construction, which uses for instead of to, and identifies someone for whose benefit something is done. This can be added to any sentence, 3-place bitransitive, 2-place transitive, or 1-place intransitive. Here we discuss only the transitives:

I'll open the door for you. (Note -- you don't wind up with the door)
I'll dig a clam for you. (Note -- you do wind up with the clam)
I'll fix the car for you. (Note -- you don't wind up with the car)
I'll fix a meal for you. (Note -- you do wind up with the meal)

In precisely those situations where the Benefactive object of for ends up possessing the direct object, the sentences can undergo Dative; in those cases where they don't, they can't.

*I'll open you the door.
I'll dig you a clam.
*I'll fix you the car.
I'll fix you a meal.

The last two sentences show that this extension of Dative to Benefactive is not governed by the verb used (fix in both cases), but by the intended meaning of the clause, including idioms, presuppositions, and metaphors.

edited Nov 23 '18 at 00:06

answered Nov 07 '12 at 21:42

John Lawler

107,887

2

Bitransitive or ditransitive? – Ergwun Nov 08 '12 at 00:00
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Yes, one of those. – John Lawler Nov 08 '12 at 00:09
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or the other ;-) – mcalex Nov 08 '12 at 00:44
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Well, as I think my answer shows, there's a huge difference between the average UK and US levels of flexibility about what "benefactive" objects can validly accept what "benefits" without strings or prepositions. So far as I'm concerned, OP's girlfriend has "given" him (vicarious) control of the entrydoor, so it's fine by me. I don't even really have much of a problem with "Johnny! Open me the door for Aunt Ethel!" – FumbleFingers Nov 08 '12 at 01:41
How does that work with something like "I'll do you the service?" – Roy Nov 08 '12 at 10:20
@Roy: Indeed. "Riddle me that!", as they say. Granted that (or, more often, this) is something of a "set phrase", but I'm tempted to wonder if Americans on average find it less "grammatical" than Brits. – FumbleFingers Nov 08 '12 at 14:27
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There are any number of local, regional, and idiosyncratic usages with different verbs in different contexts with different metaphors. That's what happens with living syntax like this in the wild; you get a broad spread of individual variation to enrich the pool and promote evolution. – John Lawler Nov 08 '12 at 14:59
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Interesting: I'll fix the car for you, you don't end up with the car, I'll fix a car for you, you do end up with a car. – gerrit Nov 08 '12 at 15:10
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If that's the intention, yes. I'll fix you up a nice room in the attic; He fixed me up with a car/a date/a contact. Of course fix up is a phrasal verb and Particle Shift interacts with Dative in interesting ways. – John Lawler Nov 08 '12 at 15:16
@John: It's certainly starting to look as if my own "individual variation" is more tolerant of this construction in more contexts than the average here on ELU. I know but me no buts doesn't really count, because it's another "set phrase", *but* I have a definite feeling I can discard the preposition more easily with "me" or "you" than, say, a more "distant" referent (such as "they", or an actual noun) for the "indirect object". – FumbleFingers Nov 08 '12 at 15:16
Sure thing; syntax in the wild, remember? Look at a field of wildflowers and notice how many differences there are. All necessary in the unceasing battle of word with word. – John Lawler Nov 08 '12 at 15:18
@John: Also, there are a lot of contexts where if the "beneficiary" is me, this is so strongly implied it doesn't really affect the meaning whether you explicitly specify it or not. But some verbs seem to require it anyway. With, for example, "Pass* [me] the salt, please", it's completely optional, but I at least require* the pronoun with other verbs (such as give or hand) there. I'm sure you're right that the meaning is a critical factor in acceptability, but the specific verb itself also seems to make a difference. – FumbleFingers Nov 08 '12 at 15:30
Naturally enough, First Person is, well, First. That's the "Me First Principle", as Cooper and Ross call it, in World Order. – John Lawler Nov 08 '12 at 16:47
OK, I know a bit of linguistics, a couple of languages, and a bit of StackExchange, yet I'm uncertain where to ask as follows, what part of linguistics we're in (syntax? usage? is there a much more precise answer?), and how the English-speaking public accesses this knowledge in life or in print (for example, via Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage?). – minopret Nov 08 '12 at 17:01
2

Syntax and Semantics, which really can't be separated any more successfully than your flesh and your blood. This is pretty close to the kind of stuff in McCawley 1999 (simplified a bit here). It's not the sort of thing any dictionary would cover, because it isn't about words so much as the grammatical constructions they control. – John Lawler Nov 08 '12 at 17:47
For Dative and other Alternations -- and the verbs that control them -- you could check out Levin 1993. – John Lawler Nov 08 '12 at 17:48
4

Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1839: “No, madam; well you said the God you serve will open you a path for deliverance.” And apparently there is 2010 poetry collection called Let Me Open You a Swan. Still, it seems easier to open you a beer than a stage act. – tchrist Nov 09 '12 at 04:07
@JohnLawler thanks so much for your answer and the book reference! – minopret Nov 10 '12 at 16:26
1

She showed him the door has a second meaning that she showed the door to him isn't often used for. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 06 '12 at 00:28
Using whether or not the dative object ends up owning the direct object as a hard rule seems a bit simplistic to me. It doesn't really explain why "I told him something" is OK, while "I said him something" is not. Seems to me that sometimes it is governed by the verb used. – dainichi Dec 18 '12 at 06:03
It's always governed by the verb -- or at least the verb phrase -- that's used. That's the point. This is an extension of the Dative alternation to a Benefactive construction. Tt's a Dative mimic, just like Buy Ten And Save! looks mimics an Imperative, but isn't. – John Lawler Dec 19 '12 at 01:14
1

'"Run someone a bath" is not common, but I often hear "Run me a bath, please." ' [wordreference.com]. I've also come across it on occasion. I'd argue that this is an example where 'the Benefactive object of for ends up not 'possessing' the direct object'. But it (run a bath for) could be claimed to resist decomposition as an idiom. However, this does show how the 'rules' covering allowable semantic types of objects, etc, become relaxed by mimicry. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 11 '14 at 07:23
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It's amazing how much mimicry there is in language; there are examples of both Batesian and Müllerian mimicry, and probly others. Of course, that's to be expected; language is alive. – John Lawler Jun 11 '14 at 14:38
It should be noted that "the door to you" would be ambiguous at best (open to criticizm) and paradox in practice (door to the house), whereas "for" historically commands accusative, i.e. the direct object of a subordinate clause in that case). The syntax in question is in agreement with e.g. German, Polish and French, etc., which differentiate acc. and dat. in pronouns. Fom a quick glance, the construction with "for" also seems admissable; interestingly, Spanish has para "for, to" (por "for"+ a "to"), contrasting with bare a "to" (e.g. on the way to hell) or hacia "towards". – vectory Dec 29 '19 at 03:53
Re << "This [Benefactive construction] can be added to any sentence, 3-place bitransitive, 2-place transitive, or 1-place intransitive... In precisely those situations where the Benefactive object of for ends up possessing the direct object, the sentences can undergo Dative" >> By "can be added to any sentence" did you mean any sentence where the verb is one of the "Ordinary bitransitive verbs of transfer", as you mentioned in the paragraph above that in your answer? Or does that restriction not apply to Benefactive constructions? – HeWhoMustBeNamed Mar 08 '20 at 16:14
... Also, among sentences with Benefactive constructions, are only monotransitive ones subject to the Dative Alternation, or any ditransitive or intransitive ones too? – HeWhoMustBeNamed Mar 08 '20 at 16:19
@MrReality: As I said, it "can be added to any sentence, 3-place bitransitive, 2-place transitive, or 1-place intransitive." The any is stressed, and you could add including after sentence. Dative has its own restrictions, independent of Benefactive's. – John Lawler Mar 08 '20 at 20:06

score 40 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

40

Open is a transitive verb, not ditransitive, so it only takes one object, e.g. door.

I will open the door - one object (door)

* I will open you the door - two objects (you, door)

The second sentence seems weird because open doesn't take two objects.

A ditransitive verb takes two objects. For example, give can be ditransitive:

I gave you the money - two objects (you, money)

edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

Community

1

answered Nov 07 '12 at 21:08

Matt E. Эллен

29,137

1

That's the word! Most verbs aren't ditransitive. I'll delete my answer in favour of yours. But I'm not sure that's the whole story. Assuming we don't classify to cash as a ditransitive verb, how come we're happier with "Can you cash me a cheque?" than we are with "Can you open me the door?". – FumbleFingers Nov 07 '12 at 21:14
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@F Perhaps that sentence indicates that to cash is ditransitive. – Andrew Leach Nov 07 '12 at 21:25
@FumbleFingers I can't explain why open doesn't take another object beyond knowing that it doesn't. A foible of only being a native speaker, I suppose. – Matt E. Эллен Nov 07 '12 at 21:26
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@FumbleFingers: I don't think I find "Can you cash me a check?" any more grammatical than *"Can you open me the door?" (Although Google Ngrams seems to disagree with this.) – Peter Shor Nov 07 '12 at 21:37
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@Peter Shor: How odd! Using a technique I picked up from you some time ago, I just checked Google Books results for "cash a check for me" (954), "cash me a check" (82). The equivalents for UK spelling "cheque" are 305 and 242, which I think suggests we're nowhere near as averse as Americans to the idea of promoting any old verb to "ditransitive" status. – FumbleFingers Nov 07 '12 at 21:56
@Matt Эллен: Apparently there's a significant US/UK divide here. But I don't think it's strictly a matter of "ditransitive verbs". I'm sure many British dentists will have said things like "I'll fill you that tooth", but it would be stretching terminology beyond the breaking point to claim that to fill is in any meaningful sense a ditransitive verb. – FumbleFingers Nov 07 '12 at 22:02
@FumbleFingers interesting. Maybe before my time. Perhaps my British ears have been polluted by US telly? – Matt E. Эллен Nov 07 '12 at 22:14
@Matt Эллен: If anything, I'd be inclined to suspect the "prepositionless" (suits me better than "ditransitive") usage is actually a relatively "new/increasing" phenomenon (both in terms of acceptability as well as prevalence). What the hell - I'm going to undelete my answer and expand for that US/UK difference... – FumbleFingers Nov 07 '12 at 22:19
@MattЭллен Thanks for introducing me to ditransitive verbs. It's unclear to me from your answer when a ditransitive verb's indirect object should take a preposition. To buy can be transitive or ditransitive. I think John Lawler's answer nailed it. – Iain Samuel McLean Elder Nov 07 '12 at 23:50
Google Books comes up with quite a bit for "open a". I tried things like us, me, you, etc. I think the dative-of-interest applies here. – tchrist Nov 09 '12 at 04:15
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open doesn't take two objects. Sounds so much like programming! – Anirudh Ramanathan Nov 09 '12 at 10:34
@Cthulhu lucky for us the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been disproved! – Matt E. Эллен Nov 09 '12 at 12:09
@FumbleFingers: 'I'm sure many British dentists will have said things like "I'll fill you that tooth", but it would be stretching terminology beyond the breaking point to claim that to fill is in any meaningful sense a ditransitive verb.' - I agree. 'He took the dog a walk,' and 'He led them a merry dance' have essentially the same formal structure as 'He gave them a camera,' but must surely be regarded as different base structures with elided prepositions. Separating semantics and structure may give useful insights but is certainly never going to give anything like the complete answer. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 06 '12 at 16:42
@Edwin: I think to lead someone a merry dance is effectively a "set phrase", so it may not reflect any current general principles. And I have to say to take the dog a walk isn't a credible utterance in my version of English (but I think most if not all speakers would be quite happy to *give the dog a walk*) – FumbleFingers Dec 06 '12 at 21:19
"Took the dog a walk" has nearly 40 000 Google hits; "took her a walk" 3.7 million - and I can't think of any alternative constructions that would contain these wordings. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 06 '12 at 23:23
@Edwin: I know it's a bit late to pick up on this, but I can't resist pointing out that if I page through the results, Google peters out at 72 hits for "Took the dog a walk", and just 38 hits for "took her a walk". I stopped looking after 20 pages (200 hits) on "Took the dog for* a walk", but those results seem to me to confirm my impression that hardly anyone would endorse this particular construction without a preposition. Unlike "Can you cash me a cheque"*, which I'm certain is fine for millions of Brits, regardless of what Americans may think of it. – FumbleFingers Jun 10 '14 at 20:04
...whereas "took the dog for a walk" 'peters out' after 300. I didn't say that it was as common, just that it's hardly regarded as unusable. And it provides another strand in the syntactic 'S + V + O + O' structure (though I wouldn't call 'a walk' a true object). It's not an isolated example; 'a ride' is another syntactic object met with. Thanks for the signpost back to this thread, though; JL's post is good, as ever. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 10 '14 at 20:40
@FumbleFingers: If you will insist on digging up old threads ... I've 'rediscovered' (see above) "Will you run me a bath, please(?)", which seems to be another exception to the 'In precisely those situations where the Benefactive object of for ends up possessing the direct object, the sentences can undergo Dative; in those cases where they don't, they can't.' Slapping on an 'idiom' sticker doesn't really explain the exception. I'm guessing it's mimicry of 'Will you make me a cup of tea, please?' etc. And I expect the dative transformation will be used in further dodgy areas in the future. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 11 '14 at 07:30
@Edwin: I'm not going to overtly disagree with John Lawler on this one (he's the acknowleged expert as regards the fundamentals, obviously), but this "thread revival" prompted me to seek more support for the "it ain't necessarily so" position (which I assume you as a Brit share with me). I found an interesting source that I've added to my answer. – FumbleFingers Jun 11 '14 at 13:23

FumbleFingers · Answer 3 · 2020-11-27T12:27:04.427

Open you the door isn't the exception at all. Most verbs capable of having both a direct and an indirect object don't readily accept the possibility of just specifying both objects without using any prepositions (but if/when you can do that, you always have to put the "indirect object" first).

There's a significant US/UK divide here, as illustrated by these Google Books results...

American usage: cash a check for me" (954), cash me a check (82).

British usage: cash a cheque for me (242), cash me a cheque (305).

As a Brit, I don't have any real problem with OP's exact usage and context, though I'm aware some people would find it anywhere between "slightly odd" and "totally ungrammatical". Taking it a bit further though, probably almost everyone would say that...

"Look who's in the driveway, Johnny! Go and open Auntie Ethel the door!"

...is "totally unacceptable".

EDIT: I don't really disagree with John Lawler's observation that the "ditransitive, prepositionless" dative alternation construction largely turns on whether the beneficiary ends up possessing the direct object. But it's not a hard-and-fast rule - particularly, I feel, in BrE.

As this source says, the above intended reception constraint [beneficiary ends up possessing object] comes with a certain amount of inherent fuzziness. And to illustrate that fuzziness, it gives actual "acceptability" figures for a few "marginal" constructions...

a: Could you iron me these shirts? [76%]
b: Could you wash me the dishes? [54%]
c: Could you clean me the windows? [47%]
d. Could you open me the door? [25%]

My own feeling is that this form is becoming more common (those figures were collected almost 40 years ago), and that it's more likely when the beneficiary is a pronoun (particularly, me). I'd be prepared to bet that if the above survey were repeated today, b above would score higher than 54%, but "Could you wash Mum the dishes?" would score significantly less.

score 6 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

6

As you noticed, many verbs can take an indirect object, and can also express the indirect object with to or for. But there is no rule that anything expressed with to or for must be convertible to an indirect object, and therefore "open the door" is not an exception to the rule.

There are plenty of examples of verbs that work this way:

Break a leg for me != Break me a leg.

I bought balloons for the party != I bought the party balloons.

They brought the discrepancy to the director's attention != They brought the director's attention the discrepancy.

There's nothing special about open that prevents it from taking an indirect object; if anything, the "special" verbs are the ones that do take the indirect object.

edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

Community

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answered Nov 07 '12 at 21:13

JSBձոգչ

54,843

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Your second example sounds weird because it's a garden-path sentence: party balloon is a type of balloon. But both I bought drinks for my friend and I bought my friend drinks sound fine to me. – Iain Samuel McLean Elder Nov 07 '12 at 21:35
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It also depends on whether you parse "party" as "group of people" or "festive event". – MSalters Nov 08 '12 at 15:47
Even though someone can actually be responsible for a discrepancy (and ipso facto be in possession of said discrepancy, thus validating the benefactive construction in theory), "They brought the director's attention the discrepancy" just sounds really odd and is certainly something I could never imagine myself (a native speaker) nor any of my native English-speaking friends saying. – user25349 Mar 20 '13 at 03:08

What's wrong with "I'll open you the door"?

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