A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

§3.2 Direct and indirect objects^71

1Il The object typically corresponds to the subject of an associated PASSIVE

clause.

IV The object can nonnally take the fonn of a PRONOUN (which must be in

accusative if it is one of those listed in [7]).

v The basic object position is IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE VERB.

Consider how these properties distinguish the object NP in [14a] from the adjunct
NP in [b]:

[1 4 ] OBJECT ADJUNCT

a. I Ed I told I the manager. I b. Ed I arrived I last week. I

The object the manager is licensed by the verb tell: it could not occur with a verb

like arrive (*Ed arrived the manager is ungrammatical). But every verb is com­

patible with the adjunct last week.

With tell it is possible to omit the object (Ed won't tell is grammatical), but some

verbs have to have an object when they occur in a canonical clause: attempting to

use verbs like accost, delineate, entail or force without an object always yields

ungrammatical results. But no verb requires that an adjunct like last week be

present in the clause.

Example [14a] has an associated passive clause with the manager as subject: The

manager was told (by Ed). This is not possible for [b]: *Last week was arrived

(by Ed).

The manager in [a] can be replaced by an appropriate pronoun: e.g. Ed told her. No

such replacement is possible for last week in [b]: * Ed arrived i1 is quite impossible.

In [a] we cannot in general insert elements between the verb and its object: com­

pare *Ed told unexpectedly the manager. (Instead we have Ed unexpectedly told

the manager or Ed told the manager unexpectedly.) There is no such restriction

in [b]: Ed arrived unexpectedly last week.

3.2 Direct and indirect objects

There are two subtypes of object: direct and indirect objects. We represent
them as Od and^0 ; when labelling examples. The two kinds may occur together, and
when they co-occur in canonical clauses, the indirect object precedes the direct object:

[ 15] s P

a. Sue I gave I Max I the photo.

s P

b. I I bought I them I some shoes.

The traditional labels 'direct' and 'indirect' are based on the idea that in clauses
describing an action the referent of the direct object is apparently more directly
involved in being acted on in the situation than the referent of the indirect object.
In [a], for example, it is the photo that actually changes hands and becomes one of