direct or indirect object?

Question

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could help me with something. I was talking to my spanish friends earlier and we were discussing the direct and indirect object. They found a sentence online to demonstrate but it confused us more. The sentence is "él nos lleva a tu líder". I said that "nos" was the direct object and "lider" was the indirect object, but they disagreed. So I said if we change "nos" to "los" is that correct or would it have to be "les" (if so then it is the indirect object) but we couldn't reach an agreement. Can anybody offer some insight? Thanks.

Answer 1

The sentence is "él nos lleva a tu líder".

I agree with you that "nos" (nosotros) is the direct object. It doesn´t matter if you change the person or thing being taken, it´s still the direct object of the action "llevar".

The existence of an indirect object here is gramatically argueable due to the lack of "se". "a tu líder" while indicating direction of the action is a prepositional phrase, which is simply a confirmation of "se", which dosen´t appear in the sentence. If the sentence were to include the "se" ("él se nos lleva a tu líder" or just "él se nos lleva") it would clearly contain an indirect object, but it doesn´t so I would be interested in the RAE´s opinion.

This situation represents a good reason for using the indirect object personal pronoun even when it is not gramatically required - a very common practice.

guau JC - awesome answer, looks like you're becoming the resident grammarian around here - nice one :) - Kiwi-Girl, Feb 21, 2013

Answer 2

I would say you are correct. Here is how I see it:

He is taking us to your leader:

Él nos lleva a tu líder.
¿Seguro? ¿A mi líder?
Sí, le nos lleva.

Change "nos" to "los"

He is taking them to your leader:

Él los lleva a tu líder.

¿Verdad?

Sí, se los lleva. ("le" changes to "se" when the direct object is la/lo/las/los.)