Indirect object of participle?

[Luckysquirty]

Offering the candy to the child, the lady smiled.

Could "child" be the indirect object of the participle "offering"?

[Piscean]

No. 'The child' is the object of the preposition 'to'.

In "Offering the child the candy", 'the child' is the indirect object of 'offering'.

[jutfrank]

In "Offering the child the candy", 'the child' is the indirect object of 'offering'.

And the child is also the indirect object of Offering in the original example, I assume. Is that right, Paul Matthews?

The direct object of Offering is the candy.


Edit: I'd like to retract the part highlighted in blue, as it seems that I was mistaken. I'm leaving this post up, though, for the sake of the coherence of the thread.

[Piscean]

In the original example, Offering the candy to the child, there is no indirect object.

[jutfrank]

In the original example, Offering the candy to the child, there is no indirect object.

Are you sure? Okay.

Some references would say that there is. I wasn't sure.

[Piscean]

When I was at school, many decades ago, as the meaning of:

I offered the child the candy
and
I offered the candy to the child

was exactly the same, both phrases in bold were considered to be indirect objects.

Nowadays most grammarians consider phrases beginning with a preposition to be preposition(al) phrases, the noun phrase part of them being objects or complements of the preposition.

Whatever the semantic implications, there is no difference in form between these three sentences:

1. I threw the ball to the child.
2. I threw the ball at the child.
3. I threw the ball past the child.

In #1, there is contact between the ball and the child; the child 'receives' the ball.
In #2, there is probable contact between the ball and the child; the child may or may not 'receive' the ball.
In #3, there is no contact between the ball and the child.

The meaning is irrelevant; the structure is the same: NP - VP - PP. In some analyses, the PP is part of the VP, but that does not change the analysis of the PP.