Double object constructions and the anomalous syntax of GIVE in Cantonese

•The verb bei ‘give’ is not a prototypical example of ditransitive verbs in Cantonese.•In a Cantonese GIVE-construction, the theme-object precedes the recipient-object.•In all other ditransitive constructions, the theme-object follows the recipient-object.•Cantonese as a language does not have an exceptional order of non-subject arguments.

The default definition for a double object construction (DOC) is almost invariably ‘a construction like the give-construction’. While the GIVE-construction may be a cross-linguistically representative example of such constructions, within Cantonese, the construction certainly displays syntactic behaviour that is anomalous. One such anomaly is that, in the GIVE-construction, the theme-object immediately follows the verb, while the recipient-object is the argument that is the furthest away from the verb. This order of objects is quite rarely found across languages. It should, however, be noted that Cantonese as a language does not have an exceptional order of non-subject arguments in DOCs, the verb bei ‘give’ in this language, and this verb only, does. The syntax of the GIVE-construction patterns with that of all other DOCs in many other respects. Proposals, couched within the Lexical-Functional Grammar framework, are offered to capture these facts.