Re: Direct object? Indirect object?
- From: Athel Cornish-Bowden <athel_cb@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 15:12:55 +0200
On 2009-04-08 07:40:32 +0200, mjhardy@xxxxxxx (Michael J Hardy) said:
"I don't know her telephone number.
I didn't ask her."
One might think that "her" seems like the
direct object of the verb "ask". But one
could have said:
"I didn't ask her that."
In this sentence, "her" seems like the
indirect object and "that" like the
direct object.
But "her" seems to play the same role
in both sentences. In the first form,
is "her" an indirect object of a verb
that has no direct object? Before I
thought of this example, I had thought
that in English, no verb has an
indirect object unless it also has a
direct object.
This contrasts with the situation in
German,
I agree with your analysis (including the bit I didn't quote), but I think this illustrates a general problem with trying to explain English grammar to Germans (Germans in particular, but not only Germans), who tend to demand more rigid unambiguous rules than English has. There are too many things that defy rational explanation, especially if you want the explanation to be simple and memorable. In The King's English the Fowlers devote (if memory serves) a fair number of pages to an explanation of the difference between "shall" and "will", but still leave the reader thinking, "well, OK, but I don't think it's quite as simple as that."
--
athel
.
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- Direct object? Indirect object?
- From: Michael J Hardy
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