In the sentence 'The coach gave the team a trophy,' which word is the indirect object?
Acoach
Bgave
Cteam
Dtrophy
'Trophy' is the direct object (gave *what?* — a trophy). 'Team' is the indirect object (gave to *whom?* — the team). The indirect object appears between the verb and the direct object and answers 'to whom' or 'for whom.' The prepositional paraphrase test confirms this: 'The coach gave a trophy to the team' rearranges the same relationship. Note that 'coach' is the subject (not an object at all) and 'gave' is the verb.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
A student labels 'doctor' as the direct object in the sentence 'Maria became a doctor.' What is the error?
AThe student is correct; 'doctor' receives the action of becoming
BThe student is wrong; 'doctor' is a predicate nominative after a linking verb, not a direct object — no action is being done to the doctor
CThe student is wrong; 'doctor' is actually an indirect object
DThe student is correct; any noun following a verb can be called a direct object
'Became' is a linking verb that connects the subject to a noun that renames it — a predicate nominative. 'Doctor' doesn't receive any action; it re-identifies Maria. No action is being done *to* a doctor. The test: direct objects work with transitive verbs where you can sensibly ask 'Maria became *what?*' But the paraphrase 'A doctor became Maria' means the same thing, which confirms it's a predicate nominative (subject and predicate noun are interchangeable), not a direct object (which would not survive that flip).
Question 3 True / False
An indirect object can always be rephrased as a prepositional phrase using 'to' or 'for' placed after the direct object.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
True. This is the defining test for indirect objects. 'She sent her friend a letter' → 'She sent a letter to her friend.' 'He bought his sister flowers' → 'He bought flowers for his sister.' The two forms are semantically identical; only the structure differs. When the noun moves into the prepositional phrase, it is technically no longer grammatically an indirect object (it becomes the object of the preposition), but the relationship it expresses — recipient or beneficiary — is unchanged.
Question 4 True / False
Most transitive verb that takes a direct object can also take an indirect object.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
False. Only ditransitive verbs — a subset of transitive verbs — can take both a direct and an indirect object. Verbs like *give*, *send*, *tell*, *throw*, and *show* are ditransitive. But many common transitive verbs like *eat*, *break*, *see*, *read*, and *enjoy* take a direct object but cannot naturally take an indirect object. You can 'eat a sandwich' but you cannot 'eat someone a sandwich.' The indirect object slot is only available to verbs whose meaning involves transferring something to a recipient.
Question 5 Short Answer
How can the prepositional paraphrase test help you decide whether a noun after a verb is an indirect object or something else?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Try moving the noun after the direct object and inserting 'to' or 'for.' If the resulting sentence means the same thing as the original, the noun is an indirect object. For example: 'She showed him the photo' → 'She showed the photo to him' — same meaning, so 'him' is an indirect object. If the paraphrase doesn't work or changes the meaning, the noun is not an indirect object.
The prepositional paraphrase test works because indirect objects express a recipient relationship that can be expressed in two equivalent ways in English — as a noun placed between verb and direct object, or as a prepositional phrase after the direct object. Any true indirect object will pass this test. It also helps you distinguish indirect objects from direct objects: a direct object cannot be converted this way without changing the sentence's meaning.