Indirect object

Question

Hi.Tom chose the history of light for his report.What's the function of the underlined prepositional phrase?My university professor said it is the indirect object, but I can't work it out. It seems to me like an adverbial phrase.

Persian Learner · Accepted Answer

Anonymous · Answer

Persian LearnerTom chose the history of light for his report.

I'd parse it like this:

Tom - a subject;
chose - a predicator;
the history of light - a direct object;
for his report - an adverbial (I'd describe it as an "adverbial of goal".)
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PS: I'm a non-native.

Persian Learner · Answer

Any other comments?

GPY · Answer

I wasn't aware that a prepositional phrase could be termed an indirect object. If anything is an indirect object then it would presumably be "report". Some sources, e.g. http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/indirectobject.htm, allow that the object of a preposition can be termed an indirect object, but whether that could extend to "report" in your example, I'm not sure.

CalifJim · Answer

Persian LearnerTom chose the history of light for his report.

I can't imagine how 'for his report' could be an indirect object. The indirect object is the receiver of a thing given or communicated. 'for his report' (or indeed even just 'his report') is not receiving anything.

I think there is some confusion between this use of 'for' and another use in which indirect objects rephrasable with 'for' can indicate for whose benefit something is done.

Lucy bought her mother a new coat (in which 'her mother' is an indirect object) can be rephrased as Lucy bought a new coat for her mother. In either phrasing 'her mother' is the intended recipient of the coat, so the label 'indirect object' makes sense.

It would be stretching the meanings of words too far to say that Tom chose as he did for the benefit of his report, i.e., with his report as the intended recipient of 'the history of light', so I can't see how 'indirect object' comes into it at all.
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The pattern you have here is more related to a construction like Tom wanted apple pie for dessert, where 'apple pie' serves the requirements of being a dessert. This is like Tom chose the history of light for his report, where 'the history of light' serves the requirements of being (a topic for) his report. The word after 'for' in these constructions has some family resemblance to an object complement, usually connected to the direct object by "as" or "to be" or nothing at all.

Tom chose the history of light [as / to be] his report topic.
Tom wanted apple pie [as / to be] his dessert.

I think you can see the resemblance of the first example to your sentence with 'for'.

CJ

Indirect object

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