Subject: direct object and indirect object, Syntax Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello Chrome Mary and hello Rosie hi
David so today we're going to be talking
about subject direct object and indirect
object identifying those within a
sentence but first I suppose we should
figure out what those things are so
we've talked about what subjects are
before but let's review it again really
quickly so a subject is a noun or a
pronoun that performs the verb in a
sentence so in the sentence Chris ate
cereal Chris is the subject because
Chris is the noun or pronoun that is
performing the verb ate Rosie what is a
direct object so a direct object is the
main the main thing in the sentence that
is being acted upon so in this sentence
Chris ate cereal cereal would be the
direct object because it's the thing
being acted upon it's being eaten so
every sentence has to have a subject so
subject is critical but direct objects
and indirect objects less so so we could
all you know as a sentence we could just
have Chris ate right but if we want to
bring in this direct object we can say
Chris ate cereal so who's doing the
eating Chris what is the thing that was
eaten cereal
so this seems like it would cover most
interactions between objects and people
but then we have this other thing
indirect object what's that about so an
indirect object is is often it's kind of
signifying a recipient of of something
so it's like another thing in the
sentence that might be acted upon so
let's see if we can come up with some
examples for that because it because we
have this direct object which is this
thing being acted upon and then the
indirect object is also being acted upon
but it's being acted upon in like a
giving way let's see if we can figure
this out alright so we have this
sentence straightforward Alethea through
a frisbee so we've got subject here
we've got direct object here who's doing
the throwing Alfia what did she throw a
frisbee but what if we have the sentence
Althea threw me a frisbee well so we
know from context because we have the
word frisbee in here that Athiya is not
hurling me bodily right she's not
chucking me across a field for a dog to
catch but we do know that the subject of
the sentence is elfia and we know that
the direct object of the sentence is
frisbee but where is that frisbee going
well it's going to me so okay so we've
got this is the direct object this is
the subject and this is the indirect
object so I am the me the pronoun me is
the recipient of the direct object the
frisbee Rosie would you read me this
sentence please Wanda gave Louie a gift
card that's very nice of her yeah so
okay so walk me through this then what
is going on in this end what are the
relationships between the components of
this sentence okay so we have two people
and the first the first person listed is
the subject of the sentence because
she's doing an action right she's doing
the giving right and then we have a
direct object which is a gift card okay
that's the object that she gave yeah
that's something she's giving she has a
direct relationship with that but she
the gift card has a recipient and that's
Louie and he's the indirect object I
think another way to identify whether or
not a word is the indirect object in a
sentence is to see if you can pull it
out and stick it on the end of the
sentence as it currently stands with a
preposition and see if it still makes
sense right so so this in this case -
Louie is no longer what we would
traditionally consider an indirect
object so if we've got Wanda gave a gift
card to Louie right Wanda is the subject
gift card is the direct object and then
we can see - Louie is now this adverbial
prepositional phrase that modifies gave
it's the manner in which she gave it to
Louie and if we switched it out if we
said Wanda gave Louie to gift card that
doesn't make sense at all so to review
the subject is the noun or pronoun that
performs a verb in a sentence the direct
object is the thing that's acted upon
and the indirect object is the recipient
of that direct object it's the the thing
that gets the direct object in the case
of Althea threw me a frisbee the
me is the indirect object in the case of
Wanda gave Louie
giftcard Louie is the indirect object he
gets a gift card I get the frisbee right
that is subjects direct object and
indirect objects you can learn anything
Dave it out
Rosie up