To "le" or not to "le"

Question

Two example sentences:

La niña escribe una carta para su amigo.

El arquitecto les presenta su edificio a los clientes.

Are the sentences correct as they are? Should "le" come before "escribe" in the first sentence?

I am confused with this grammar because the inderect object pronoun reference says this:

When to Use the Indirect Object Pronoun

If there is an indirect object in a sentence, there MUST be an indirect object pronoun! You can also have the prepositional phrase "para nosotros" or "a Miguel" to add emphasis, but you can NOT only have the prepositional phrase.

However, the same reference also provides this as an example:

Él compró unos regalos para nosotros. Él nos compró unos regalos.

You can see "nos" is not in the first sentence.

Answer 1

Both sentences are correct. I'm not able to provide the best technical explanation, but on the first sentence "para su" is the prepositional phrase and it is quite sufficient to convey the meaning "the girl is writing a letter for her friend. If you leave out the "para su", then you MUST write the "le": "La niña le escribe una carta a su amigo"

Answer 2

I guess I'm still confused. I come across many sentences that contain prepositional phrases with indirect objects, however, only about half the time do I see the indirect object pronoun "le" used.

Welcome to the club. You should read Heidita's comments on the ambiguity concerning "para" in these contexts. - 0074b507, Mar 18, 2010

http://forums.tomisimo.org/showthread.php?t=3134 read this link about two i.o.'s. It gets worse and worse. - 0074b507, Mar 18, 2010

You might also note when reading about the "redundant" i.o.p. that they always use "a" and avoid "para" in their examples. - 0074b507, Mar 18, 2010

Thank you for the response and the link, gfreed. - Schwilly19, Mar 18, 2010

Answer 3

I agree with the second explanation.

La niña escribe una carta para su amigo, but

La niña le escribe una carta a su amigo.