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Here's a simple question: Is is possible for a participle -- past or present -- to modify a direct object? "You deserve every ounce of respect garnered." Is this correct?

My reasoning is based on the fact that participle phrases can modify nouns, as in "the twins doodling in their tablets" or "the model destroyed by the fire."

Pedanticpoet22
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  • As you say, participles can modify noun phrases—it doesn't matter whether the noun phrase is subject, object, or something else entirely. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 03 '14 at 10:44
  • Participles that modify nouns are derived from relative clauses via Whiz-Deletion. You can always add "that is/are/was/were" before the participle and restore the clause. Just like relative clauses, it doesn't matter what grammatical relation (subject, object, oblique) a noun has in a sentence; this is the structure of the noun phrase, not the clause. – John Lawler May 03 '14 at 14:23

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"You deserve [every ounce of respect garnered]."

Everything inside the brackets is the direct object. In most grammars that are commonly used today, the direct object is a specific function in clause structure. (Aside: there is another function also called object which is used within the structure of a preposition phrase.) In your example, the object function is realized by the whole expression "every ounce of respect garnered". Here are some other somewhat related examples, with the direct object enclosed by brackets:

  • You deserved [the gift].

  • You deserved [the gift that had been given to the teacher's pet].

And so, to answer your question: in your example the participle isn't modifying the direct object, and that is because the participle is actually part of the direct object. (You could say that the participle is a modifier, and it is modifying the noun "respect" which is the head of the complement (object) of a preposition phrase headed by "of".) You could also say that the participle is a modifier within the direct object.

F.E.
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