Description:

The determiner hap is the verbal auxiliary used for ditransitive verbs. Ditransitive verbs have three gramaticalized syntactic arguments, a subject noun phrase in the ergative case which is the agent of the verb, an object phrase in the absolutive case which is the patient of the verb, and an indirect object noun phrase in the dative case that is the recipient, destination or beneficiary of the action of the verb. Any other arguments must be expressed periphrastically.

Such verbs can undergo antipassive and disintentive valence change operations. Hap very broadly has a sense like 'give', from its paradigm verb 'happat', from which it is plainly intended to have been derived. In a typical ditransitive verb such as a verb of giving (like happat itself), the ergative agent would be the giver, the absolutive patient would be the thing given, and the recipient would be the dative indirect object.