What is an indirect object?

Definition
	An indirect object is a grammatical relation that is one means of expressing the semantic role of goal and other similar roles.
	It is proposed for languages in which the role is distinct from the direct object and the oblique object on the basis of multiple independent syntactic or morphological criteria, such as the following:
	Having a particular case marking, commonly dative Governing an agreement affix on the verb, such as person or number Being distinct from oblique relations in that it may be relativized

Generic
	An indirect object is a kind of
	What is an object?

Sources
	Crystal 1985 156
	Hartmann and Stork 1972 155–156
	Pei and Gaynor 1954 99
	Givón 1984 109–110
	Mish 1991 614
	Andrews, A. 1985 126–128
	Comrie 1989 66

Context for this page:

Concept module: indirect object
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): I
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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