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## UNIT TEN Indirect object pronouns (1) 

1 We saw in Unit 7 that a direct object is the person or thing that the verb directly impacts on. An indirect  object is the person or thing that the action is happening to  or for : Scrivo a Carla domani  (I’ll write to Carla tomorrow); Mando cartoline a tutti i miei amici (I send cards to all my friends ). In English, the indirect object can usually be preceded by ‘to’ or ‘for’, but these are very often omitted: compare ‘I gave the book to Karen ’ and ‘I gave Karen  the book’, or ‘I’ll pour a glass for Jane ’ and ‘I’ll pour Jane  a glass’. 

An indirect object pronoun replaces a noun used as an indirect object: ‘I gave the book to her /I gave her  the book’, ‘I’ll pour her  a glass/I’ll pour a glass for her’ . 

In Italian, an indirect object pronoun replaces a noun preceded by the preposition a ; it has to agree in gender and number with the noun it refers to. Indirect object pronouns normally come before the verb. In the following examples, the pronouns are in italics: 

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2 The forms of the indirect object pronouns are as follows: 

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