Sentence Structure: Subject-Verb-Direct Object-Prepositional Object

A subject - verb - direct object - prepositional object sentence consists of a subject A noun phrase (a person or a thing) or a nominal clause normally placed before a verb phrase and which acts as the performer of the verb. more..., a complex transitive verb A verb which requires a direct object and an object complement (also known as an object predicative) in the form of a noun phrase or adjective, by an obligatory adverbial (including a prepositional object). glossary definition, or a complex transitive A verb which requires a direct object and an object complement (also known as an object predicative) in the form of a noun phrase or adjective, by an obligatory adverbial (including a prepositional object). more... prepositional verb Verbs composed of a lexical verb and a preposition and which take a prepositional object. more..., a direct object A direct object is the "thing" which is directly affected by a transitive verb. It may be a noun, noun phrase, nominal clause, an ing-clause, a to-cause, or a pronoun. more... and a prepositional objectObjects consisting of a noun phrase or nominal clause normally placed after a prepositional verb (deal with, look at, depend on, consist of, contribute to, lead to, come from, etc.). more....

The subject in the sentence above is a one-word noun phrase. The object is also a noun phrase and the prepositional object is prepositional phrase. Without more context we cannot know what "them" refers to.

Here are a few more examples (click and drag to stop, start and find the sentence you wish to examine):

You can view an analysis of some of the noun phrases in the above examples in the animations below (click on Subject to view each noun phrase).

In the above example the prepositional phrase is longer. It contains an embedded prepositional phrase "from Europe". Long prepositional phrases are not uncommon in academic writing.

Prepositional phrases contain a preposition and a complement (usually a noun phrase) In the above example the prepositional phrase contains a preposition and a nominal relative clause A wh-clause which can be rewritten as a head noun modified by the wh-clause functioning as a relative clause. more....

Sometimes it is is possible to use alternative prepositional constructions. The above construction may be rephrased as below:

You can see further examples of this structure on the SVO_d O_p page and test yourself on the SVO_d O_p exercise page.