In the sentences different relationships are presented between the different elements that compose them. These relationships give rise to the so-called syntactic functions of the sentence, such as the direct and indirect object, also called direct and indirect object.
Both complements have a relationship with the action expressed by the verb of the sentence
It is called a direct object because the action of the verb falls on it in an obvious and direct way, while we speak of an indirect object because the action of the verb falls on it in a secondary way, that is, indirectly.
In the sentence "I told the truth to my teacher", we find a direct object (the truth) and an indirect object (my teacher). The action of the verb falls on the direct object and, secondarily, on the indirect object.
Examples of direct and indirect object
The first expresses what is said about the subject through the verb. In this way, if I say "Manuel has seen a game", to identify the direct object we must ask the question "what to the verb", that is, "what has Manuel seen". In this case, the answer is "a match". In this way, "a match" is the direct object of the sentence.
The indirect object is a modifier that accompanies the verbal nucleus and, therefore, we must ask the question to or for whom to the verb to identify it. Thus, in the sentence "I made a cake for Agnes", the following question should be asked: for whom did I make a cake. In this case, the answer is "for Ines". In this way, "for Inés it is the indirect object." In this sentence "a cake" acts as a direct object.
Although the questions to the verb serve to identify both complements, this method is not always decisive to detect the direct and the indirect object. In this sense, the direct object does not always refer to objects and the indirect object does not always refer to people either.
In the sentence "Luis wrote a poem", a poem acts as a direct object because a poem could be substituted for it, that is, "Luis wrote it." Thus, if a possible direct object can be replaced by “lo”, “la”, “los” or “las”, it is really a direct object. In the sentence, "Francisco kissed Maria", Maria is a direct object because we could say "Francisco kissed her."
In addition to the direct and indirect object, there are also circumstantial complements of the sentence
The circumstantial complements are those that describe the way in which a certain situation develops.
In the sentence "Today has been cut with the bread knife twice", we find three circumstantial complements: "Today" is a circumstantial complement of time, "with the bread knife" is a circumstantial complement of instrument and "twice" it is a circumstantial complement of quantity.
Photos: Fotolia - Robert Kneschke / Drubig
