Dechticaetiative language
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A dechticaetiative language is a language in which the indirect objects of ditransitive verbs are treated like the direct objects of monotransitive verbs.
Ditransitive verbs have two arguments other than the subject: a patient that undegoes the action and a recipient or beneficiary that receives the patient (see thematic role). In a dechticaetiative language, the recipient of a ditransitive verb is treated in the same way as the single object of a monotransitive verb, and this syntactic category is called primary object. The patient of a ditransitive verb is treated separately and called secondary object.
In dechticaetiative languages with passive constructions, passivisation promotes the primary object to subject.
Most dechticaetiative languages are found in Africa, but some claim that English contains dechticaetiative constructions. For example, the passive of the sentence John gave Mary the ball is Mary was given the ball by John, in which the recipient rather than the patient is promoted to subject.