[B-Greek] Re: Indirect Object

Chet Creider creider at uwo.ca
Thu Oct 2 16:43:50 EDT 2003


>> At 6:51 AM -0400 10/2/03, Lisa Novotny wrote:
>> Can something other than a person be an indirect object?
>> For example: I bought clay to make a sculpture for the crafts fair.
>> Would "the crafts fair" be the indirect object?

> Presumably you are using an English sentence but are really asking about
> terminology normally used for Greek grammar.

This is an important distinction because grammarians writing in English about Greek grammar
use the term differently from the way English grammarians do even when they (the grammarians
of Greek) are writing about English grammar!

> The term "indirect object" is most commonly used in English--and by
> traditional Greek grammarians as well--to refer to individual or collective
> persons/groups TO or FOR whom the verbal action is performed. In terms of
> that definition "the crafts fair" in your sentence would NOT be an
> "indirect object" but rather the noun in a phrase "to the crafts fair"
> which adverbially modifies the verb "make."

Perhaps this is so semantically, but not syntactically (see my previous post to Waldo).  However, this
is exactly what Smyth writes (in the 1956 edition revised by Messing):

1469. Many verbs take the dative as the indirect object together with an accusative as the direct object.
The indirect object (sic) is commonly introduced in English by _to_.

It is easy to prove that Smyth is wrong here since he were right then it would be possible to passivize
such an object and it is not:
(1) He gave a horse to the Hyrcanian.
(2) *The Hyrcanian was given a horse to.
(3) *To the Hyrcanian was given a horse.
cf.
(4) He gave the Hyrcanian a horse.
(5) The Hyrcanian was given a horse.
However, this problem does not arise in Greek where beneficiaries are not expressed, as they can
be in English, as either indirect objects or as objects of prepositions (in otherwise identical sentences).

> Increasingly nowadays grammarians are using the term "complement" rather
> than "object" to refer to words relating adverbially to a transitive verb;
> in Greek, this may be a "direct" complement, an accusative of the person or
> thing receiving the action of the verb, or an "indirect" complement,
> indicating the person affected in some way by the action of the verb, e.g.
> the person for whom or to whom the action is carried out: in Greek this
> would normally be expressed with a dative-case form. In Koine Greek,
> however, this may just as likely be an accusative governed by the
> preposition PROS or some other preposition.

This is true; although the usage is not new, it is becoming standardized.  Complement is best understood
as contrasted with adjunct.  A complement, such as a direct object or an indirect object, is something
which is inherently part of the syntax of a verb.  An adjunct is an optional constituent.  A classic example
is
(6) She decided on the boat on the boat on Saturday.
(7) *She decided the boat on the boat on Saturday.
In (6), the first prepositional phrase is required by the verb "decide" and is a complement.  The other
two phrases are locational and temporal adverbials and are optional.

> This problem of terminology is further "muddied" by the fact that verbs
> that don't take a direct object, especially intransitive verbs, may take a
> dative complement which could easily be called an indirect object although
> it isn't a person.

> For example, PROSERCONTAI TWi hIERWi,"they approach the temple." In English
> we'd probably understand "approach" as a transitive verb and call "the
> temple" the direct object of "approach." In Greek TWi hIERWi clearly enough
> functions as a "complement" for PROSERCONTAI but it wouldn't normally be
> called an "indirect object." Some Greek grammarians tend to call this a
> "dative of destination." I guess that adequately describes it, but I really
> think that this whole business of "objects" and "complements" of verbs is
> somewhat fuzzy. What do our professional linguists on the list say about
> this? I think it's something worth trying to reach a consensus about,
> whether or not we ever reach a complete agreement.

I don't think there is a problem as long as we remember that dative case is not the same
thing as indirect object.  TWi hIERWi is a complement but it is not an indirect object.

I hope these three posts (from a "professional" linguist) are helpful.

Chet Creider





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