What determines whether we say She gave him a book instead of She gave a book to him? The author views this 'dative alternation' as a sociolinguistic variable and explores its distribution across different British English dialects, registers and time frames. It thereby offers a novel, language-external explanation of the choice of one construction over the other and sheds new light on British dialect syntax. | Ditransitives in British English Dialects by Johanna Gerwin, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters