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This page pertains to UD version 2.

iobj: indirect object

The indirect object of a verb is any nominal phrase that is a core argument of the verb but is not its subject or direct object. The prototypical example is the recipient of ditransitive verbs of exchange:

Ela me deu um aumento
iobj(deu, me)

In general, if there is just one object, it should be labeled obj, regardless of the morphological case or semantic role. For example, in Portuguese, ensinar can take either the subject matter or the recipient as the only object, and in both cases it would be analyzed ad the obj:

Ela ensina lógica
obj(ensina, lógica)
Ela ensina os alunos do primeiro ano
obj(ensina, alunos)
Ela ensina lógica a os alunos do primeiro ano
dobj(ensina, lógica)
iobj(ensina, alunos)

This is consistent with the analysis of Huddleston and Pullum (2002) “The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language”, chapter 4 section 4 (p. 251). As they note, it is no different to the same semantic role being sometimes the subject and sometimes the object in intransitive/transitive alternations. The one exception is when there is a clausal complement. Then the clausal complement is regarded as a “clausal direct object” and an object nominal will be an iobj, parallel to the simple ditransitive case:

Ela disse a os estudante que eles precisam estudar esta noite
iobj(disse, estudantes)
ccomp(told, precisam)
Ela disse o plano a os estudantes
iobj(disse, estudantes)
obj(disse, plano)

If there are two or more objects, one of them should be obj and the others should be iobj. In such cases it is necessary to decide what is the most directly affected object (patient). In Portuguese, usually iobj comes with a preposition (a, de, em) or in olibque case (me, se, lhe).


iobj in other languages: [bej] [bg] [cop] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [es] [eu] [fr] [fro] [gsw] [gub] [hy] [it] [ja] [ka] [kk] [la] [no] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ro] [ru] [sl] [sv] [swl] [tr] [u] [vi] [yue] [zh]