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Dative: receiver as second object
studieniveau:
1
ἰατρῷ καὶ νομικῷ τὴν ἀλήθειαν λέγε
‘Tell the truth to your doctor and your lawyer.’ (Aesop )
The dative signals a receiver as a second object, with predicates expressing delivery or communication.
Lexical usage
Verbs of delivery
δίδωμι ‘to give (to)’, ἐπιτρέπω ‘to entrust (to)’, πέμπω ‘to send (to)’, προσφέρω ‘to carry (to)’ etc.
Verbs of communication
ἐπιτάττω ‘to impose (a task) on’, κελεύω [Hom. + dat.; Att. + acc.] ‘to impose (a command) on’, πιστεύω ‘to entrust (something) as a task to’ etc.
Syntactic usage
Both the first object (inanimate, in the accusative) and the second object (animate, in the dative) can be used in the nominative as the subject of a passive construction.
Varia
In the traditional terminology a receiving (second) object is generally referred to as an indirect object.