Do indirect objects in English always mean "to" or "for"?

"I gave him two dollars."

This tacitly means "to him". Are there exceptions to the rule that an indirect object in English always means "to" or "for"?

In English, "I stole him two dollars" does not mean "I stole two dollars from him", and one does not say "I withheld him that information" (either of those usages would be valid in German).

Solution 1:

No.

There are verbs that take two objects that won’t let you blindly transform this:

• verb   indirect-object   direct-object

into this

• verb   direct-object   to/for   indirect-object

and be left with legal or meaningful sentences. Some of these are:

• Pardon me my reach.
• I forgave her the entire incident.
• I envied him his easy smile.
• I begrudged him his easy smile.
• The falling dish pail struck him a good solid knock.
• I excused him the mud on his shoes.
• I forbade him further admittance.
• You cannot permit them full run of the place.
• I denied him his request.

If you look back a few hundred years, you’ll find many more instances of this sort of thing which are now obsolete because they don’t sound right to us anymore. The Old English dative was not so cut and dry as to always convey a to/for relationship. The dative is the “interested” party here.