(^72) Chapter 4 Clause structure, complements and adjuncts
Max's possessions. And in [b] it is the shoes that are directly acted on by being pur
chased and taken away.
The indirect object is characteristically associated with the semantic role of recip
ient, as in these examples. But it may have the role of beneficiary (the one for whom
something is done), as in Do me a fa vour or Call me a taxi, and it may be interpreted
in other ways, as seen from examples like This blunder cost us the match, or 1 envy
you your goodfortune.
Alternation with prepositional construction
Most (but not all) verbs that license two objects also admit a different construction
where there is a direct object and a pp complement (C) headed by to or fo r.
Compare [15] with [16]:[16] s p C
a. I Sue I gave I the photo I to Max.s p c
b. We I bought I shoes I fo r them.Although the meanings are the same as in [15], the syntactic structure is different.
The PPs to Max andfor them are complements (they are licensed by give and buy,
respectively), but they are not objects: they don't have properties [13iii-v]. And
since they are not objects, they can't be indirect objects.^2Syntactic distinction between direct and indirect object
The main syntactic property distinguishing the two kinds of object is position: when
both occur within the VP - as in canonical clauses - the indirect object precedes the
direct object. Compare [15] above with the ungrammatical orders Sue gave the
photos Max and 1 bought some shoes them.
In addition, the direct object readily undergoes fronting in various non-canonical
constructions, whereas the indirect object is quite resistant to it. Judgements about
the acceptability of clauses with fronted indirect objects vary considerably, depend
ing in part on the construction, in part on the verb - and in part on the speaker mak
ing the judgement. But there is no doubt that in general the acceptability of fronted
indirect objects is significantly lower than that of direct objects. In [17] we illustrate
with four non-canonical constructions:
[17] FRONTED DIRECT OBJECT
a. Everything else. she gave him.
II a. What did she buy him?
iii a. He kept the gifts [which she
had given him].
IV a. What a lot of work he gave them!FRONTED INDIRECT OBJECT
b. %Him. she gave everything else.
b. * Who did she buy these shoes?
b. %They interviewed everyone [whom
she had given gifts].
b. * What a lot of them he gave work!2 Nevertheless, traditional grammars analyse to Max and for them (or just Max and them) in [16] as
indirect objects. The similarity between between these elements and the corresponding ones in [15],
however, is purely semantic: there is no justification for equating them in terms of syntactic function.