Difference between direct and indirect objects

Direct object (ལས།) and indirect object (བྱ་བའི་ཡུལ།)

For verbs where agent and object are different, the basis for the division is the action's basis (ལྟོས་གཞི།), which is then subdivided into:

1. Those that are affected by the action (བྱ་བའི་ཤུགས་རྐྱེན་ཐེབས་པ།)
   Considered the direct object (ལས།) and marked with the First Case
2. Those that are not affected by the action (བྱ་བའི་ཤུགས་རྐྱེན་མི་ཐེབས་པ།)
   Considered the indirect object (བྱ་བའི་ཡུལ།) and marked with the Second Case

Examples of the first:

• "To cut wood." ཤིང་གཅོད།
  There is only one basis (ལྟོས་གཞི།), i.e. the wood, and it is considered the direct object (གཅོད་བྱ།) and not the indirect object (གཅོད་ཡུལ།) because it is affected by the action of cutting.
• “The seeds were planted in the field.” ས་བོན་ཞིང་ལ་བཏབ།
  There are two bases (ལྟོས་གཞི།): The direct object (གདབ་བྱ།) is the seed and the indirect object (གདབ་ཡུལ།) is the field.

Example of the second:

• “Losang looked at the flower.” བློ་བཟང་གིས་མེ་ཏོག་ལ་བལྟས།
  There is only one basis (ལྟོས་གཞི།), i.e. the flower, and it is considered the indirect object (བལྟ་ཡུལ།) and not the direct object (བལྟ་བྱ།) because it is not affected by the action of being looked at.

This second type of verbs will not have a resultative like the examples of cutting wood (resultative: the wood having been cut) and planting the seed (resultative: the seed having been planted) because there is no definitive culmination and ceasing of the action; because the object is not affected by that action.

There is a temptation (also in Tibetan) to leave these indirect objects in the First Case since there is only one basis (ལྟོས་གཞི།), however it is considered more grammatically correct for them to be marked with the Second Case. Similarly in English, it is possible to say “to look at the sunset” or “to watch the sunset”, “to ride the horse” or “to ride on the horse”, etc.

Up a level: Part of speech referents