About the object of a verb followed by "to"

Question

In the sentence "He sang to himself." is the pronoun himself the indirect object pf the verb sang? Or is the phrase to himself the (indirect) object of the verb sang?

Answer 1

In the sentence:

• I sang Mary a song

The first Object, Mary, is the Indirect Object—the person that 'gets' the song. The phrase a song is the Direct Object—the thing being given. If we change the order of Mary and the song, the grammar changes:

• I sang a song to Mary.

In the example above, a song is still a Direct Object, but the preposition phrase to Mary is not an Indirect Object. We describe it as a Complement of the verb sing. [Notice that to Mary does not get the song!]

Inside this preposition phrase, the word Mary is the Complement of the preposition to. It is not an Object or Complement of the verb. It is a Complement of the preposition.

In the Original Poster's example:

He sang to himself.

The verb sang has no Objects. It only has a prepositional Complement.

As a general rule of thumb a preposition phrase will usually be a Complement of the verb (maybe a Predicative Complement, or a Locative Complement). But it will very rarely be the Direct or Indirect Object of the verb.

One test we can do to see if a phrase is a Direct Object, or perhaps an Indirect Object, is to see if we can passivise the sentence by making that phrase the Subject of a passive sentence:

• Mary was sung a song.
• *To Mary was sung a song. (ungrammatical)
• *To him was sung the song. (ungrammatical)
• *To himself was sung the song. (ungrammatical)

In the rare cases where a preposition phrase is the Object of a verb, we will usually be able to passivise it:

• We judged after Christmas to be the best time for the party.
• After Christmas was judged to be the best time for the party.

Answer 2

First:

An indirect object is going to be the second of two objects. There's only a few verbs that take two objects in English, give and bring being common ones.

Since there's one object here, it's a direct object. Indirect objects will be preceded by to sometimes, but direct objects won't.

Second:

A verb's object is something/someone integral to the action and meaning that the verb expresses. Some verbs really need objects, some can let context fill in an object, and some change meaning without objects.

I hit the table. (The thing that I hit was the table.)

I hit. (Hit really needs an object. Listener/reader is going to immediately ask "You hit what?" - even with strong context this sounds incomplete.)

I sang "Mary had a little lamb." (The song (object) that I sang was "Mary had a little lamb".)

I sang. (Sing without an object can mean to sing regularly. If previous context was talking about a specific song, listener/reader will assume that is what you are singing.)

Now, for most verbs you can attach a prepositional phrase expressing how or in what direction the activity was performed. To can be one of these prepositions - but keep in mind to has many different meanings in English - one is indicating the infinitive, other is indicating the indirect object, and another is synonymous somewhat with toward or at.

I sang "Mary had a little lamb" to my cat. (The song (object) that I sang was "Mary had a little lamb" and this activity was directed towards my cat.)

When you do this, this is not an object. Because the meaning of the verb doesn't change if you remove it.

I gave the ball to Mary.

I gave the ball. (Listener/reader will wonder who you gave the ball to. Sounds incomplete. Give with 1 object means donate or donate blood and a ball is not something typically donated.)

I gave $20. (Sounds like you donated something at church. Doesn't sound wrong.)

So, myself cannot be the object of I sing unless you are a song.

I sang to myself. (You are singing and directing that activity towards yourself. You could mean sing intransitively as in to sing regularly or there is a song mentioned previously that context would fill in.)

But:

I sang myself. (Looking at the words, this makes "myself" the object of "I sang" - meaning it can look like you think that you are a song. However, since this doesn't make sense, it equates to "I sang BY myself.")