Grammar Basics: What Is Objective Case?

An direct object is a noun or noun phrase that receives the action of a transitive verb. For example:

Alice caught the baseball.

Subject=Alice Verb=caught Object=baseball

A direct object answers the question of who(m) or what. In the sentence above, you could determine that ‘baseball’ is a direct object by asking the question: What did Alice catch? She caught the baseball. Baseball is the direct object. An indirect object answers the question of to whom, for whom, or for what. For example:

Max pitched Alice the baseball.

Max (subject) pitched (verb) the baseball (direct object) to whom? He pitched it to Alice. Alice is the indirect object. To learn more about grammar and to help us celebrate National Grammar Day this March, visit our new resource page.