UNIT TEN
Indirect object pronouns (1)
1 We saw in Unit 7 that a direct object is the person or thing that the verb
directly impacts on. An indirect object is the person or thing that the
action is happening to or for: Scrivo a Carla domani (I’ll write to Carla
tomorrow); Mando cartoline a tutti i miei amici (I send cards to all my
friends). In English, the indirect object can usually be preceded by ‘to’ or
‘for’, but these are very often omitted: compare ‘I gave the book to Karen’
and ‘I gave Karen the book’, or ‘I’ll pour a glass for Jane’ and ‘I’ll pour
Jane a glass’.
An indirect object pronoun replaces a noun used as an indirect object: ‘I
gave the book to her/I gave her the book’, ‘I’ll pour her a glass/I’ll pour a glass
for her’.
In Italian, an indirect object pronoun replaces a noun preceded by the
preposition a; it has to agree in gender and number with the noun it refers to.
Indirect object pronouns normally come before the verb. In the following
examples, the pronouns are in italics:
2 The forms of the indirect object pronouns are as follows:
Quando vedo Maria le racconto tutto.
[le stands for a Maria (fs)]
Non telefono a Carlo, gli scrivo.
[gli stands for a Carlo (ms)]
Paolo non ci dice mai la verità.
[ci stands for a noi]When I see Maria I’ll tell her
everything.
I’m not going to phone Carlo: I’ll
write to him.
Paolo never tells us the truth.mi
ti
gli [m]/le [f]
ci
vi
gli [m and f]to me
to you
to him/it/her
to us
to you
to them