Lose and the double object construction

Abstract

The English verb "lose" appears in the double object construction. However, there is a striking difference in meaning between the construction examples with "central" verbs such as "give" and "send " and the construction examples with "lose". While the former profiles the meaning "to cause the referent of the indirect object to receive or have the referent of the direct object", the latter has the meaning "to cause the referent of the indirect object no longer to have the referent of the direct object." Moreover, "lose" has developed the ditransitive use, by way of causativization. While many ditransitive verbs are three-argument verbs and have an agent in its lexical meaning, "lose", in its central usage, is a two-argument verb. Therefore, it appears that there is no "inherent" argument which functions as a subject of the causativized double object construction. This paper inquires into how the use of "lose" in the double object construction is licensed in the frame of an analysis put forward by Goldberg's Construction Grammar approach (1995). I also make some comments on Nakamura's network model(2001) which is well-developed and effective, especially in dealing with "peripheral" verbs which are discussed in this paper.