indirect object or adverbial ?

Hello, Hela.

Your analysis of the first sentence (I gave my sister a cat for her birthday) is correct. I'd be happy with calling the prepositional phrase "for her birthday" an adjunct (adverbial) of time, though some more accurate label may exist.

It's true that R. Quirk does not consider the sentence pattern SVOdOi. He'd call "to my sister" in your sentence #2 an adverbial. I am no grammarian, but I disagree. If "my sister" is the I.O. in the first sentence, why can't it still be I.O. in the second? There has been only a change of position of that noun phrase, but that does not involve a change in the meaning of the sentence. The indirect object needs to be introduced by a preposition (usually "to" or "for") when it is places after the D.O. To me, "to my sister" in sentence #2 is exactly the same I.O. as "my sister" in sentence #1.

The verb "give" in your second sentence is not complex transitive. Complex transitive verbs take both a direct object and an object complement, which is not the case here. If we follow Quirk and say that "my sister" is an adjunt (adverbial), then "give" is a monotransitive verb. If we say that "my sister" is the I.O. of give, then the verb is ditransitive: it takes two objects.

Your example #3 could be analysed in the same way, I think. "Of" is not the usual preposition that will introduce an I.O., so you can say that "of the Supreme Court Justice is an adjunct (adverbial). However, that structure might also be considered the I.O. of the sentence. You have two possible passive counterparts for your sentence: "The Supreme Court Justice was asked a question" and "A question was asked of the Supreme Court Justice!.

That said now, I think you can make your choice (I.O. or adverbial) and either should be ok, since both can be accounted for.

As a side note here, I'll mention that Quirk also poses a dilemma when it comes to analysing certain verbs such as "look at". He says that, in a sentence like "I'm looking at you", you can consider the preposition part of the verb, in which case "you" would be D.O. But, he says, you can also consider "at you" as a prepositional phrase, in which case it would be an adjunct (adverbial) modifying the verb "look".

Miriam

P.S. If "of the Supreme Court Justice" were an adverbial, as you say, I'm not sure what type it would be, but you can have adverbials of almost anything (yes, this is a bit of an overgeneralisation!). Perhaps one of target or goal if such things actually exist?

You're most welcome, Hela. I love everything connected with English grammar, and syntactic analysis is my favourite topic!

I have A Grammar of Contemporary English and A University Grammar of English with me, so I can even give you page numbers to go with my words this time!

In A Grammar of Contemporary English you read, on page 38, that there are two types of complements: subject complement and object complement. There are examples of both and, on page 39, you have the following examples of object complement:

"They make him the chairman every year" and "they made him happier".

On the same page, you read: "A few verbs take an object complement as in #6 (this is the sentence about making someone the chairman) and these will be referred to as complex-transitive."

In A University Grammar of English you find the same definition/explanation together with the chairman example on page 14. Complex transitive verbs are mentioned again, and more examples are provided, in Ch. 12 ("The verb and its complementation"), in both books.

There is nothing about adverbials being object complements. By definition, adverbials modify either a verb or an entire clause (these are called "sentence adverbials").

I hope this helps.

Miriam

Hello again, Hella, and you're welcome.

I cannot say you are wrong because I haven't read everything there is to read about English grammar. What I can say is that none of the authors I've read in the past 15 or 20 years consider that adverbials have anything to do with transitivity. The "transitivity" or "intransitivity" of a verb is directly related to the presence or absence of objects, respectively, respectively.

Transitive verbs (those that take an object) can be classified into monotransitive ( = 1 object), ditransitive ( = 2 objects), and complex transitive and complex-transitive (object + object complement.

Again, I've never heard of, or read about, anything or anyone that considers adverbials as either objects or object complements. Adverbs, adverbial phrases and and adverbial clauses cannot be either objects or object complements.

Regards,

Miriam

"They make him the chairman every year" and "they made him happier".

I understand the chairman and happier in the sentences quoted aboive are object complement. But in the following sentences, can the infinitive be taken as object complement?

They made him to leave.

They asked him to go.