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I am fairly convinced that any English clause (and it probably also counts for other languages, but I can't be sure about that) can only contain 1 subject, 1 direct object, and 1 indirect object. This seems lower-grade common knowledge to me, but I don't know if this is an official rule and I can't really find any linguistic authoritative source that says so. Is this indeed true? And if not, what would be a counterexample?

Obviously, a sentence can have a compound subject/object such as in:

John and Mary are walking down the street.

But in that case, I would argue that there is 1 subject that is "John and Mary".

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  • If you are allowing for compound subjects, and treating them as "one", then can you please describe in a little more detail just what you do mean by "more than one" subject?
    – Questor
    Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 19:03
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    Yes, it's a base-level rule. These terms (Su, DO, IO) are called Grammatical Relations and form dependency trees with the predicate; this is a representational practice derived from logic. Not all languages have syntax that uses these relations, though -- there are many ergative structures in the world, and for them "Subject" and "Direct Object" are meaningless terms. "Indirect Object", on the other hand, is usually just the receiver.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 19:09
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    I was confused at first because I thought you were talking about sentences and not clauses. Be sure to reword your first sentence as "...any English clause... can only contain..."
    – ktm5124
    Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 19:41
  • Thanks ktm5124, you're perfectly right. As you can see, I'm not a linguist. Corrected it now. @JohnLawyer: what a fantastic answer. I do appreciate the very thorough (mathematical) analysis in your paper. Feel free to write it as an answer and I'll mark the topic as answered.
    – Yellow
    Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 21:20

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Our esteemed professor has in a potentially ephemeral comment above written this fine answer, which I herebelow consign to posterity and the general community pro bono publico:

Yes, it’s a base-level rule. These terms (Su, DO, IO) are called Grammatical Relations and form dependency trees with the predicate; this is a representational practice derived from logic.

Not all languages have syntax that uses these relations, though — there are many ergative structures in the world, and for them “Subject” and “Direct Object” are meaningless terms.

“Indirect Object”, on the other hand, is usually just the receiver.

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