the dog bit the boy?

Question

Ok guys, heres something for you. The dog bit is a sentence by itself soooo. Is the dog bit the boy a sentence with a direct and indirect object?

another question I have is, if i change the sentence to the boy was bitten by the dog. Then is it changing the sentence to a passive voice?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

"The dog bit" is a very unusual sentence.
"The dog bit the boy" has a subject

, verb (bit), and direct object

. It has no indirect object.
"The boy was bitten by the dog" is the passive form of "The dog bit the boy", yes.

CJ

Festisio · Answer

Then is there anything i could add to, The dog bit the boy to make an indirect object?

Festisio · Answer

can someone please give me some examples and explain to me how i can indentify indirect objects?

Festisio · Answer

If I said, The dog bit the boy, which the girl let loose. Or while his little brother watched. Would that be an indirect object?

CalifJim · Answer

The verb is what determines if an indirect object is possible.
Some verbs that take indirect objects and direct objects are:

give, bring, sell, buy, offer, promise, tell, ask

Theresa gave Bob a new wallet.
I will bring you the coffee tomorrow.
They sold him a guitar.
My sister bought George a coat.
The salesman offered me a good deal.
Be careful! They'll promise you the moon!
I'm sure that Jill told her mother the truth.
The teacher asked the students some important questions.

There are many more than those listed here, but "bite" isn't one of them.

CJ

Paco2004 · Answer

I think we can distinguish direct objects and indirect objects rather easily, because in English "direct objects" and "indirect objects" are defined syntactically, not semantically like the case distinction between accusatives and datives in German. If a verb is followed by two objects, the first one is an indirect object and the second one is a direct object. If a verb is followed only by an object, the object is always a direct object. For example, take a sentence like "I told him the story". Here we have two objects "him" and "the story". So "him" is an indirect object and "the story" is a direct object. Next let's take "I told him so" as an example sentence. Here we have only one object "him". So "him" here is a direct object despite the fact that it is semantically not different from the "him" in the previous example.

paco

Festisio · Answer

ok so like Jan gave Sally a gift Sally is the indirect object and gift is the direct object?

Khoff · Answer

Paco -- I'm not sure you can always say that the first of two objects is automatically the indirect object. What if you said "I told the story to the man in the long white coat"? "The story" is still the direct object, even though it now precedes the indirect object. "The man in the long white coat" is the indirect object.

I'm also not sure that in "I told him so" "him" is now a direct object. I am not nearly as expert in English grammar rules as you are, so I hesitate to contradict you - but my intuition tells me that the direct object of the verb "tell" answers the question "tell what?", while the indirect object answers the question "tell to whom?" I would say that in the sentence "I told him," "him" is the indirect object and the direct object is an unstated "it." Is that possible?

Paco2004 · Answer

Festisiook so like Jan gave Sally a gift Sally is the indirect object and gift is the direct object?

Hello Festisio

Yes, you are right. "Sally" is the indirect object and "a gift" is the direct object.

paco

Paco2004 · Answer

Hello Khoff

I understand what you mean.

(EX-1) "Yesterday she taught her students the Pythagoras theorem".
(EX-2) "Yesterday she taught the Pythagoras theorem to her students".

The two sentences are almost the same in meaning, so some traditional grammarians insist that "her students" in "to her students" of EX-2 is also an indirect object of "taught". However, in newer grammar theories like that adopted by R. Quirk in his "the Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language", "to her students" is taken as an adverbial phrase meaning a direction of the verbal phrase (i.e., action) "taught the Pythagoras theorem", and "her student" is parsed as the object of the preposition "to".

Furthermore, some linguists like Chomsky's followers are saying that EX-1 and EX-2 are slightly different in the meaning. EX-1 necessarily implies her students understood at least something about the Pythagoras theorem, but EX-2 does not necessarily mean so. EX-2 allows a possibility that she taught the Pythagoras theorem to her students but the students understood nothing about the theorem. If it is true, Quirk's way of analysis seems more reasonable than the traditional grammar theory.

As to the second question of yours, I agree that "I told him" could be an elided form of "I told him (it)". So in such cases we might take "him" as an indirect object despite the fact that the verb "told" is followed apparently by only one object "him".

paco

the dog bit the boy?

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