Objects & Modifiers
Adverbial Objectives & Retained Objects
What you’ll learn
- Spot a noun doing an adverb's job
- Test whether a noun after a verb is really a direct object
- Understand what happens to the second object of a passive verb
- Recognise the expletive 'there'
Nouns doing an adverb’s job
The lecture lasted an hour. — an hour sits exactly where a direct object would, but nothing was done to it. It answers how long?, which is an adverb’s question.
That is an adverbial objective: a noun phrase functioning as an adverb. Because its job is adverbial, it is diagrammed like an adverb — below the verb, not on the base line.
Try the passive test
A real direct object can become the subject of a passive sentence. An hour was lasted by the lecture is nonsense, so an hour is not a direct object.Ask which question it answers
How long? How far? How often? When? — all adverb questions. A direct object answers what? or whom?Diagram it below the verb
On a horizontal beneath the verb, like an indirect object but answering a different question.
“The lecture lasted an hour.”
- detDeterminer
- nsubjNominal subject
- ROOTRoot of the sentence
- npadvmodNoun phrase as adverbial modifier
Comparing the two views
npadvmod — literally “noun phrase as adverbial modifier” — rather than dobj. This is a case where reading the relation label saves you from a wrong analysis.Retained objects
When a verb with two objects goes passive, only one of them can become the subject. The other stays put — it is retained.
Grandma sent Luis a postcard → Luis was sent a postcard. Luis is now the subject, but a postcard is still sitting after the verb with nowhere to go. Diagram it in the direct-object slot, exactly where it was.
The expletive there
In There were three owls in the barn., there is not a place. It is a placeholder holding the subject position open while the real subject — three owls — waits until after the verb.
Diagram the real subject in the subject slot, and put there on a short line above it, since it is filling a slot rather than meaning anything.
“There were three owls in the barn.”
- explExpletive
- ROOTRoot of the sentence
- nummodNumeric modifier
- attrAttribute
- prepPrepositional modifier
- detDeterminer
- pobjObject of preposition
Comparing the two views
expl — “expletive” in the technical sense of a semantically empty placeholder. Once again the diagram rearranges and the tree relabels.Key terms
- Adverbial objective
- A noun phrase answering an adverb’s question. Relation
npadvmod, drawn below the verb. We waited an hour. She walked home.See: Adverbs
- Retained object
- The object left behind when a two-object verb goes passive and the other object becomes the subject. She was given a medal. — medal stays an object. We were told the truth.
- Expletive
- A word filling a grammatical slot without contributing meaning. There as a placeholder subject is the standard case; relation
expl. There is a bird in the yard. There were no seats left.