What's a sentence with a compound direct object?
2 Answers
Vanessa rode her bike. (Vanessa rode what? She rode her bike . Bike is the direct object in the sentence.)
A compound direct object occurs when more than one noun, pronoun, or group of words acting as a noun receives the action of the same transitive verb.
For example, in the sentence
#"Mary"# #color(red)"saw"# #"the"# #stackrel(color(red)"D.O.")(bb"lion")# #"at the zoo."#
The only direct object is lion. However, if Mary sees more than one noun, we have a compound direct object, since the same verb is acting on multiple nouns.
#"Mary"# #color(red)"saw"# #"the"# #stackrel(color(red)"D.O.")(bb"lion")# #"and the"# #stackrel(color(red)"D.O.")(bb"seal")# #"at the zoo."#
Here, the nouns lion and seal make up the compound direct object.
Be careful! A sentence can still have two direct objects and not contain a compound direct object. When the two direct objects are acted on by different verbs, they are just direct objects. An example of a sentence with two direct objects but no compound direct objects is:
#"Mary"# #color(red)"saw"# #"the"# #stackrel(color(red)"D.O.")bb"lion"# #"and"# #color(blue)"loved"# #"the"# #stackrel(color(blue)"D.O.")bb"seal"# #"at the zoo."#
Here, the lion was seen, but the seal was loved.
