NOUNS AS ADVERB MODIFIERS.
+Introductory Hints.+—He gave me a book. Here we have what many grammarians call a double object. Book, naming the thing acted upon, they call the direct object; and me, naming the person toward whom the act is directed, they call the +indirect+, or dative, +object+.
You see that me and book do not, like Cornwallis and army, in Washington captured Cornwallis and his army, form a compound object complement; they cannot be connected by a conjunction, for they do not stand in the same relation to the verb gave. The meaning is not, He gave me and the book.
We treat these indirect objects, which generally denote the person to or for whom something is done, as equivalent to phrase modifiers. If we change the order of the words, a preposition must be supplied; as, He gave a book to me. He bought me a book; He bought a book for me. He asked me a question; He asked a question of me. When the indirect object precedes the direct, no preposition is expressed or understood.
Teach, tell, send, promise, permit, and lend are other examples of verbs that take indirect objects.
Besides these indirect objects, +nouns denoting measure+, quantity, weight, time, value, distance, or direction are often used adverbially, being equivalent to phrase modifiers. We walked four miles an hour; It weighs one pound; It is worth a dollar a yard; I went home that way; The wall is ten feet six inches high.
The idiom of the language does not often admit a preposition before nouns denoting measure, direction, etc. In your analysis you need not supply one.
+Analysis.+
1. They offered Caesar the crown three times.
They | offered | crown
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| \ \ times \the
\ ———-
\ \three
\
\ Caesar
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