Indirect Object

Trevor & Julie Peterson 06peterson at cua.edu
Thu Oct 31 20:43:18 EST 2002


Mitch wrote:

> He says on page 46 about the expression "Karin threw
> to Brad a ball" (In this sentence he says "to Brad" is
> the Indirect Object.)

Actually, in his example, "Karin threw Brad a ball" makes "Brad" the
indirect objection. You might want to read it over again, just to make sure
you catch the difference.
>
> In English when the word "to" is used, it would go
> after the direct object. "Karin threw the ball to
> Brad." But now "to Brad" is not the indirect object
> but a prepositional phrase.
>
> I do not know why "to Brad" no longer fills the slot
> of Indirect Object. Why?

IMO there's some confusion in Mounce's explanation. Indirect object refers
to the functional role a constituent plays in its sentence. Prepositional
phrase refers to the internal structure of the constituent. Imagine some
kids playing a game in their backyard. They're laying down the parameters
before play begins: "That tree over there is our home base, and the car is
yours." "Tree" describes what the object in question is. So does "car."
"Home base" describes the function being assigned to that object for the
purposes of the game. In later conversation, the same entity can be
described as the car or the home base. It's not a contradiction to do so,
because the labels refer to different ideas about the same thing. This is
the same distinction we get between terms like "noun" or "prepositional
phrase" and "subject" or "object."

Where I think Mounce is confusing things is that he implies that indirect
object and prepositional phrase are the same type of label, when they're
really talking about two different things. Honestly, I think we often talk
about prepositional phrases of the sort he mentions in his example as
indirect objects. But what I think Mounce is trying to suggest is that an
indirect object can only be a noun phrase. So by that rule, once you changed
from saying Karin threw BRAD a ball" to "Karin threw TO BRAD a ball," you
would no longer have an indirect object. Functionally, the prepositional
phrase "to Brad" is doing exactly the same thing in the second sentence that
"Brad" is doing in the first sentence--the only thing that's changed is the
class of phrase involved. As he says, the normal word order with a
prepositional phrase would be "Karin threw a ball TO BRAD," but that's not
really related to the rest of the discussion.

I wouldn't try to make the distinction that Mounce makes here. I would say
that the indirect object tells you to whom the ball was given. In English,
we can do that in two different ways--with a prepositional phrase or with a
noun phrase (meaning a noun by itself or with modifiers, like if we said
"Karin threw BRAD'S WIFE the ball"). The prepositional phrase used this way
would typically follow the direct object, while the noun phrase would
precede it.

Does that help any?

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics




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