Learn English – Objects in the sentence “He provided him money for his friend”

direct-objectsindirect-objectsobjects

I am really confused about direct and indirect objects.There are many Examples are given on internet But they only deal with two objects.

Can someone tell me which are direct and indirect objects in the following sentence?

UPDATE

The audience gave the soprano a standing ovation for her performance.

I think there are three objects. the soprano ,a standing ovation and her performance,

1.But how to decide which are direct and indirect ?

2.how many maximum objects one sentence can have ?

Best Answer

The audience gave the soprano a standing ovation for her performance.

There are two objects here, the soprano and a standing ovation. The Indirect Object is the Object that comes first, and usually represents the person or thing that receives or benefits from the Direct Object. In this sentence, the Indirect Object is the soprano.

The Direct Object is the thing that is given. It normally occurs after any Indirect Objects. In this sentence it is a standing ovation.

The preposition phrase for her performance is not a Complement of the verb. It is an Adjunct (or "adverbial"). This means that it doesn't have a close relationship with the verb. The verb does not set up a special place in the sentence for this phrase.

There are several ways we can show that it is not a Complement of the verb. Firstly, we can move this phrase around in the sentence. For example, we can put this phrase at the beginning of the sentence:

  • For her performance, the audience gave the soprano a standing ovation.

Secondly we can replace the verb phrase with the words did it and still repeat the Adjunct afterwards:

  • They did it for her performance.

We cannot do this with Complements of the verb:

  • *They did it the soprano. (ungrammatical)
  • *They did it a standing ovation. (ungrammatical)
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