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At last he found three of them high up in the hills.
4. A gerund or a gerundial phrase.
He insists on coming.
A man hates being run after.
5. An infinitive or an infinitive phrase.
She was glad to be walking with him.
Every day I had to learn how to spell pages of words.
6. Various predicative complexes.
She felt the child trembling all over.
I want it done at once.
Everything depends on your coming in time.
7. A clause (then called an object clause) which makes the whole sentence a complex one.
I don’t know what it was.
He thought of what he was to say to all of them.
Thus from the point of view of their structure, objects may be simple, phrasal, complex or clausal.*
* Complex objects with verbal and non-verbal second elements (objective predicatives) are treated in detail in § 124-129.
Types of object
§ 69. From the point of view of their value and grammatical peculiarities, four types of objects can be
distinguished in English:
the direct object, the indirect object, and the cognate object.
1. The direct object is a non-prepositional one that follows transitive verbs, adjectives, or statives and
completes their meaning. Semantically it is usually a non-person which is affected by the action of the verb,
though it may also be a person or a situation. The situation is expressed by a verbal, a verbal phrase, a complex,
or by a clause.
I wrote a poem.
You like arguing, don’t you?
Who saw him leave?
I don’t know what it all means.
She was ready to sing.
When the direct object is expressed by an infinitive (or an infinitive phrase or a clause) it may be preceded
by the formal introductory object it (see § 78).
I find it exciting to watch tennis.
He found it hard to believe the girl.
2. The indirect object also follows verbs, adjectives and statives. Unlike the direct object, however, it may
be attached to intransitive verbs as well as to transitive ones. Besides, it may also be attached to adverbs,
although this is very rare.
From the point of view of their semantics and certain grammatical characteristics indirect objects fall into
two types: