Wednesday, January 1, 2014

grammar - Why not "I opened him the door"?

In actions that involve another person, we can structure sentences like the following examples:




I drove him home.



I cooked him a meal.



I gave him a spoon.




I threw him the ball.




I'm not sure of the name of this grammar pattern, but the use of the pronoun "him" is simply a shortening of "for him" or "to him" or "at him", depending.



Is there a reason why we can't (or at least, don't) say:




I opened/closed him the door.





to mean "I opened/closed the door for him"? Is there a grammar rule, or is it just not idiomatic?

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