The object is a secondary part of the sentence which completes or restricts the meaning of a verb or sometimes an adjective, a word denoting state, or a noun.
(Mike entered the room)
Ways of expressing the object.
The object is expressed by the following parts of speech:
1. A noun in the common case.
(I think he gave me a nod)
2. A pronoun (personal in the objective case, possessive, defining, reflexive, demonstrative, indefinite, negative).
(Can you do this for me?)
Sometimes the pronoun it is used as a real (notional) pronoun
(The created a game & called it “Officeclub”)
But sometimes it only introduces a real object expressed by an infinitive or gerundial phrase or by a subordinate clause. In this case it is a formal introductory object which is not translated into Russian.
(He found it impossible to utter the next word.)
3. A substantivized adjective or participle.
(They had to leave the wounded)
4. An infinitive, an infinitive phrase, or an infinitive construction.
(I want to go now)
5. A gerund, a gerundial phrase, or a gerundial construction.
(I like travelling)
6. Any part of speech used as a quotation.
(He shouted “Go away!” & shut the door)
7. A prepositional phrase with a noun or a gerund.
(He is scared of being alone)
8. A group of words which is one part of the sentence, i. e. a syntactically indivisible group.
(He found a number of persons in the Morse home.)
There are three kinds of objects in English: the direct object, the indirect object, and the cognate object.
The direct object is used after transitive verbs with which it is closely connected as it denotes a person or thing directly affected by the action of the verb. It is used without any preposition.
(He threw a pillow)
if a transitive verb takes only one object expressed by a noun or pronoun without a preposition, it is always a direct object.
(He fired me)
There are a few English verbs which can have two direct objects.
(Forgive me this question)
The indirect object denotes a living being to whom the action of the verb is directed. There are also cases when it denotes a thing.
There are two types of indirect object:
1. The indirect object of the first type, which expresses the addressee of the action.
It is used with transitive verbs which take a direct object, so it hardly ever stands alone.
(I wrote him a good letter)
As a rule the indirect object comes before the direct object. In this case it is used without a preposition.
(I asked him to send me a letter)
When the direct object precedes the indirect object, the latter is used chiefly with the preposition to and sometimes for. These prepositions make the indirect object more prominent.
(He wrote a letter to my sister)
But sometimes we cannot change the order of words at will, namely when the direct object is a pronoun and the indirect object, a noun. In this case the indirect object follows the direct object.
(Mary was sent to her sister)
When the direct object is expressed by the pronoun it, it always precedes the indirect object.
(Give it to me)
There are a number of verbs after which the indirect object is used with the preposition to even when it comes before the direct object. These are: to explain, to dictate, to suggest, to relate, to announce, to ascribe, to attribute, to communicate, to introduce, to submit, to repeat, to dedicate, to disclose, to interpret, to point out.
(Explain it to me)
2. The indirect object of the second type, which is more frequently used with intransitive verbs than with transitive ones and which does not always express the addressee of the action.
(He passed away without a will)
The prepositional indirect object is used not only with verbs but also with adjectives, words denoting state, and nouns of verbal origin.
(I am uneasy about it)
It is difficult sometimes to distinguish between an attribute and a prepositional indirect object.
(Yates’s mind was like a caldron in which boiled the general tension in town, the expectation of getting to Yasha.)
The phrase of getting to Yasha can be treated both as an attribute and as a prepositional indirect object.
The direct and the prepositional indirect object may be simple and complex.
The complex object consists of two components, of which the second stands in predicate relation to the first. The two components form an indivisible unit and consequently must be regarded as one part of the sentence. The complex object can be non-prepositional and prepositional.
(I observed Agnes turn pale)
The first component of the complex object is a noun in the common case or in the possessive case, a personal pronoun in the-objective case, or a possessive pronoun; the second is an infinitive, a participle, a gerund, seldom a noun, an adjective, a word denoting state, or a prepositional phrase.
(He hated her to work in the boarding house.)
The cognate object.
There is a special kind of object in English which has the following peculiarities.
1. It is used with intransitive verbs though it has no preposition.
(But she died a dreadful death, poor soul)
2. It is expressed by a noun which is either of the same root as the verb or is similar to it in meaning.
(That night the roused forces of Good and Evil fought their terrible fight for her soul)
3. It is almost regularly attended by an attribute with which it forms a combination that is close in meaning to an adverbial modifier: to live a happy life — to live happily.
(For the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin captain’s biscuits.)
The cognate object is generally used in such combinations as: to smile a sad smile, to laugh a bitter laugh, to die a violent death, etc.
