Your questions and the answers

Ok, I remember the following questions from the last assistantship, so I asked Sabrina

1. "The car was hit unaware by the truck"

The car is a noun phrase as a subject while the truck is a noun phrase object of a preposition."

Somebody asked me about the objects in that sentence. Which would be the direct and the indirect object there?

2. "The cat killed many birds"

I understand "killed many birds" as a verb phrase, right? Also, what would be "many" in the sentence?

Here are the answers Sabrina gave:

Good questions.

1. The first is complicated because it’s passive voice so you’re actually starting with the object, most affected/relevant part. The truck is the agent (often introduced by “by” in this type of structure). There is no indirect object. What you’ve brought up here is surface and deep structure (which I’ve decided to not focus on this term). The sentence’s meaning is the same as saying “The truck hit the car unaware.”

2. Yep: killed is the verb phrase (The VP would start with the verb “killed” on the left branch and NP on the right branch; that NP would then divide into “many” (adjective sounds right—that’s what my colleagues and I just agreed. =) and “birds”(noun).

Good questions guys!