Both good points, EMOI.
>Personally I'm increasingly leery of "object" as a viable syntactical term
>and am coming to prefer "complement" for the word used to complete the
>sense of a verb; I do think it makes sense to speak of a "direct
>complement" and an "indirect complement." However, "direct object" and
>"indirect object" are so deeply rooted in traditional grammar that they
>cannot be dislodged very easily; English-speaking novices in Koine Greek or
>in any other language who know nothing else about English grammar probably
>know what a "direct object" and an "indirect object" are supposed to be.
I agree with you, and the "complement" approach is better preparation for using BAGD to identify the various complements of verbs, as well as being closer to the approach in Smyth. However, I am not aware that any NT Grammar takes this approach, and Smyth does not really discuss different kinds of complements. I would really like a precise discussion of complements that I could draw on, including complements of English verbs. Does anybody know of such a thing?
Jonathan