We gave [John] [a present]
Here, the NP a present undergoes the "action" (a present is what is given). So a present is the Direct Object. We refer to the NP John as the INDIRECT OBJECT.
Indirect Objects usually occur with a Direct Object, and they always come before the Direct Object. The typical pattern is:
Subject -- Verb -- Indirect Object -- Direct Object
Here are some more examples of sentences containing two objects:
| Indirect Object | Direct Object | |
| Tell | me | a story |
| He showed | us | his war medals |
| We bought | David | a birthday cake |
| Can you lend | your colleague | a pen? |
Verbs which take an Indirect Object and a Direct Object are known as DITRANSITIVE verbs. Verbs which take only a Direct Object are called MONOTRANSITIVE verbs. The verb tell is a typical ditransitive verb, but it can also be monotransitive:
Indirect Object | Direct Object | ||
| Ditransitive | David told | the children | a story |
| Monotransitive | David told | a story |
As we've seen, an Indirect Object usually co-occurs with a Direct Object. However, with some verbs an Indirect Object may occur alone:
David told the children
although we can usually posit an implicit Direct Object in such cases:
David told the children the news
Realisations of the Indirect Object
NPs are the most common realisations of the Indirect Object. It is a typical function of pronouns in the objective case, such as me, him, us, and them.Less commonly, a clause will function as Indirect Object:
David told whoever saw her to report to the police
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