Is "somebody" the direct object of "talk" and "something" the object of "into" in "talk somebody into something"?

[Mori]

In the phrasal verb talk somebody into something, can we say somebody is the object of the verb talk, and something is the object of the preposition into? Can we conclude that this phrasal verb has two objects? Is my analysis correct?

 

[BobK]

Hmm. Good question - and the lack of replies suggests that it's a hard one to answer. I'd say that somebody is the indirect object of talk, and something is the object of an implied [doing]. (Generally I'd prefer things to be the objects of verbs.)

On the other hand. if a phrasal verb refers to more than one action, maybe it doesn't make sense to talk about the object of a bit of it (talk).

 

[emsr2d2]

I would say that the implied "doing" that BobK mentioned is quite important. Even though we can refer to the general action as "talking someone into something", in general that "something" is an action.

He talked me into buying a new coat.
They talked me into going on holiday.
She talked him into taking padel lessons.
We talked ourselves into getting a takeaway for dinner.

 

[jutfrank]

Firstly, the pattern talk somebody into doing something is not a phrasal verb. You can call it a 'pattern' or as I call it in my own parlance, a 'verb construction'. It's best to include 'doing' in this pattern since an -ing form is almost always used when there's no pronoun such as 'it' or 'that'.

The 'somebody' part is the direct (not indirect) object of the verb 'talk' and the 'doing something' part is the object/complement of the preposition 'into', forming a prepositional phrase complement of the verb 'talk'.

 

[Annabel Lee]

You can call it a 'pattern' or as I call it in my own parlance, a 'verb construction'. It's best to include 'doing' in this pattern since an -ing form is almost always used when there's no pronoun such as 'it' or 'that'.

The 'somebody' part is the direct (not indirect) object of the verb 'talk' and the 'doing something' part is the object/complement of the preposition 'into', forming a prepositional phrase complement of the verb 'talk'.

It's actually the same pattern that exists with cajole. Talk is virtually synonymous with cajole here -- though cajole is not quite so versatile (lacking the out of variant) -- and requires the prepositional phrase after the object following talk.

*I talked him.

I talked him into the idea.
I talked him out of the idea.

I talked him into doing it.
I talked him out of doing it.

Interestingly, talk also has another usage, with [one's] way, when the possessor and subject are coreferent and the preposition-phrase element is out of:

He talked his way out of it.
He talked his way out of getting a ticket.

I'm inclined to think that these constructions are causative and/or resultative in their underlying syntactic structure, though I've had difficulty finding easy confirmation of this.

 

[Mori]

cajole is not quite so versatile (lacking the out of variant)

I just found the following examples:

I managed to cajole her out of leaving too early.

Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus

He was cajoled out of retirement.

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

 

[Annabel Lee]

I just found the following examples.

Perhaps I was too hasty in noting that about cajole, but neither post #5 nor this thread is fundamentaly about cajole.