What do you call a verb which accepts 2 nouns?

In English, there are intransitive verbs which can't used with a noun, or aren't being used with a noun (eg. listen, die, ...), and transitive verbs which can be (eg. almost all of them).

However, amongst the transitive usage of verbs, often a verb can be followed by two nouns, eg. "bring me dinner", or "write John a letter". What's the name for this usage of a verb, and does it only ever apply with 2 nouns? Can any be used with 3 or more nouns?


Solution 1:

You can call them ditransitive verbs, which are transitive verbs that accept two objects.

We gave George a puppy. Alice gave Charles the rubbit.

In these examples, George and Charles are the indirect objects.

The same page makes a distinction between ditransitive verbs, and complex transitive verbs, which are verbs using two complements.

She considered George a friend.
Alice called Charlie amusing.

In the latter example, George is the direct object, and a friend is an object complement.

As far as I know, in English verbs don't take more than two objects.

Solution 2:

In addition to ditransitive or ambitransitive, the term valency is used to refer to the number of arguments of a verbal predicate. See here for an intro.

Wikipeda has some additional information, and claims that tetravalent (i.e. three-object) verbs exist in English. Bet is an example.