The Indirect Object

We gave [John] [a present]

Here, the NP a present undergoes the "action" (a present is what is given). So a present is the Direct Object. We refer to the NP John as the INDIRECT OBJECT.

Indirect Objects usually occur with a Direct Object, and they always come before the Direct Object. The typical pattern is:

Subject -- Verb -- Indirect Object -- Direct Object

Here are some more examples of sentences containing two objects:

 

	Indirect Object	Direct Object
Tell	me	a story
He showed	us	his war medals
We bought	David	a birthday cake
Can you lend	your colleague	a pen?

Verbs which take an Indirect Object and a Direct Object are known as DITRANSITIVE verbs. Verbs which take only a Direct Object are called MONOTRANSITIVE verbs. The verb tell is a typical ditransitive verb, but it can also be monotransitive:

 

		Indirect Object	Direct Object
Ditransitive	David told	the children	a story
Monotransitive	David told		a story

As we've seen, an Indirect Object usually co-occurs with a Direct Object. However, with some verbs an Indirect Object may occur alone:

David told the children

although we can usually posit an implicit Direct Object in such cases:

David told the children the news

Realisations of the Indirect Object

Less commonly, a clause will function as Indirect Object:

David told whoever saw her to report to the police