Can a prepositional phrase be the direct object?

We're covering grammar in English I, and we just got to gerunds. In one of the exercises, I had the sentence "Pilgrims learned about planting crops from the Wampanoags." I'm supposed to find the gerund, and identify its subject in the sentence.

I thought that the gerund would be "planting crops". When I was trying to find its function in the sentence, I used a method my teacher gave me; asking "verb what?" to identify the direct object. This gives "learned about planting crops".

I was wondering, would the function of "planting crops" in the sentence be the object of a preposition, or would the whole prepositional phrase be the direct object (since the gerund acts as a noun).

Or, do I have the whole thing horribly wrong in the first place? =)

Thanks!

evamvid

Solution 1:

I think you see the whole thing totally wrong.

A direct object never has a preposition.

• I'm reading a novel - a novel is a direct object. You ask: What am I reading?
• I'm waiting for the bus - for the bus is a prepositional object You ask: What am I waiting for?

In your sentence "Pilgrims learned about planting crops from the Wampanoags." "about planting crops" is a prepositional object and "from the Wampanoags" is a second prepositional object.

Maybe English grammars have other terms, but that's the way I see it.

Solution 2:

"learned about" is a phrasal verb -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrasal_verb

Pilgrims = subject noun

learned about = phrasal verb

learned about what? planting crops

planting = gerund (Present participle verb form used as a noun - in this case the direct object.)

crops = gerunds may have their own object