Direct and indirect objects
In addition to functioning as the subject of a verb, nouns can act as the direct object of the verb, or as the indirect object of the verb. In order for a verb to take an object, it must be a transitive verb, a verb that expresses an action that acts upon a recipient.
Direct object: function of the accusative case
The noun that receives the action of a verb in the active or middle voice is called the direct object. In ancient Greek, the accusative case is the most common way of expressing this role in a clause: the accusative case is enough to show that the verb’s action is done to it.
She closed the door.
The door is what is being closed, so in ancient Greek it goes into the accusative case: τὴν θύραν προσέθηκεν.
Indirect object: function of the dative case
Some verbs may express actions that also involve a secondary recipient, a person or thing that is affected by or benefits from the action: that noun is acting as the indirect object.
One verb that makes it easy to see the role of the indirect object, in both English and ancient Greek, is the verb “to give.” (Ancient Greek grammarians thought so, too: their name for the dative case was ἡ δοτική πτῶσις, “the case connected with giving”.) In English, we can express the indirect object either by word order or with a preposition such as “to.”
“They gave gifts to her.” or “They gave her gifts.”
In both sentences “gifts” is the direct object of the verb “gave”: the gifts are what is being directly affected by the action of the verb. The indirect object in both sentences is “her”: as the recipient of the gifts, the action of giving affected her in a secondary or indirect way. English expresses that by putting the indirect object before the direct object in the sentence, or with the preposition “to.”
Can you think of other verbs in English that frequently have both a direct and an indirect object expressed with this syntax?
In Ancient Greek, the indirect object is expressed with the dative case. Word order can be used for other kinds of emphasis.
πάντα τὰ ἐμαυτοῦ ἐκείνῃ παρέδωκα Lysias 1.6: “I gave over all of my things to her. “