Oblique Complements
Consider now the italicized expressions in (32):
(32) a. John put books in the box.
b. John talked to Bill about the exam.
c. They would inform Mary of any success they have made.
These italicized expressions are neither objects nor predicative complements. Since their presence
is obligatory, for syntactic well-formedness, they are called oblique complements. Roughly
speaking, ‘oblique’ contrasts with the ‘direct’ functions of subject and object, and oblique
phrases are typically expressed as PPs in English.
As we have seen before, most ditransitive verbs can also take oblique complements:
(33) a. John gave a book to the student.
b. John bought a book for the student.
c. John asked Bill of a question.