indirect (adj.)

(1) A term used in GRAMMATICAL description to refer to one of the two types of OBJECT ELEMENT which can function in CLAUSE STRUCTURE, the other being labelled DIRECT; traditionally considered a DATIVE function. Indirect objects (IO) in English usually appear before the direct object (e.g. the woman gave the boy a book), but may also follow it (e.g. the woman gave a book to the boy). This traditional use of the term applies to the ‘recipient’ NOUN PHRASE in DITRANSITIVE constructions regardless of its position. By contrast, GENERATIVE grammar (especially RELATIONAL GRAMMAR), uses the term in a more restricted way, only for the COMPLEMENT of the PREPOSITION (usually to), as in The woman gave a book to the boy. In relational grammar, the indirect object can be promoted and become a direct object, while the original direct object becomes a CHÔMEUR.

(2) A term used in some approaches to GRAMMAR for a QUESTION which functions as a SUBORDINATE CLAUSE; in GENERATIVE linguistics often called an embedded question. Examples include She knows [where Mary is going] and I know [what I want].

(3) The opposition between direct and indirect is also used to identify the two main ways of reflecting a person’s speech: indirect speech (or ‘reported speech’) refers to the use of a grammatical CONSTRUCTION where the WORDS of the speaker are SUBORDINATED to a VERB in a main CLAUSE, e.g. she said that she had a cold, where the ‘direct speech’ would have been I have a cold.

(4) In the classification of SPEECH ACTS, indirect refers to an UTTERANCE whose linguistic FORM does not directly reflect its communicative purpose, as when I’m feeling cold functions as a request for someone to close a door. If, on the other hand, someone produced the same sentence to express, literally, the fact that he or she was feeling cold, then the speech act would be ‘direct’ – an assertion.