Ditransitive Clauses
Ditransitive clauses are far less common than the three patterns you have already studied. In fact, the ditransitive pattern is rather rare: It's only used with verbs related to "giving" or "doing something for someone."
The pattern for this clause is "Subject / Verb / Indirect Object / Direct Object". We represent this pattern like this: (SVOiOd).
Subject | Verb | Indirect Object |
Direct Object |
|
ditransitive (SVOiOd) |
Bob | gave | Judy | flowers. |
Note the following points:
- The subject always comes first (with very few exceptions).
- The verb always follows the subject.
- The direct object (often simply called the object) is the thing that is being "acted upon" by the verb.
- The indirect object is the person or thing for whom the action is done. In the example above, it is Judy who receives the flowers, and therefore Judy in the indirect object.
- To find the indirect object, it is often helpful to turn the sentence into a question that starts with "who". For example, we might ask: "Who did Bob give the flowers to? The answer is Judy, so Judy is the indirect object.
- The indirect object is always squeezed between the verb and the direct object. (Another way to think of it is this: In a transitive sentence, the slot for the indirect object remains empty).
Subject | Verb | Indirect Object |
Direct Object |
|
transitive (SVO) |
Bob | gave | flowers | |
ditransitive (SVOiOd) |
Bob | gave | Judy | flowers. |
Here are more examples of ditransitive sentences.
Subject | Verb | Indirect Object | Direct Object |
I | gave | the monkey | a banana. |
George | offered | Greta | a sandwich. |
She | baked | her grandmother | a cake. |
They | asked | me | a question. |
The accident | taught | us | a lesson. |
Mr. Peterson | assigned | the class | homework. |
Phillip | gave | the dog | a bone. |
Mom | read | Katie | a book. |
Nana | gave | Tim | a bath. |
Eli | poured | Mary | some water. |
Instructions for the Quiz
Identify the underlined portion of the sentence.
- subject
- verb
- indirect object
- direct object