Indirect Objects

I wanted to see if the following sentence, "Usted le dio la manzana a la chica"---You gave the apple to the girl, could be said as follows, " Usted dio la manzana a la chica." If I understand it correctly, when one puts in the indirect object "le" and then later in the sentence clarifies what "le" means, here, "la chica", then why use the indirect object at al when one has the specific information, "la chica". Thank you, Henk Roelant

Hello, I never did get a reply to this question. I realize I should have stated that is was indirect objects and not just objects. Please look at again. Thank you, Henk Roelant

Since no one else has answered, I'll give it a shot. As I understand it, the indirect object pronoun "lo" HAS to be there in the proper structure of the Spanish sentence. (another of the... that's just the way it is things) The "la chice" is there for clarification of who(m?) it specifically is as "lo" could be referring to him, her or someone else specifically. I hope that someone else more qualified will come along to correct my answer, if necessary :wink:

I certainly don't qualify as an expert, but I think nailteach's explanation is basically correct. Spanish says it that way because it says it that way :D . The same thing could be said of constructions in English--they are the way they are because they are. The only small change I'd make to nailteach's explanation is to change "lo" to "le." As Henk correctly noted, the indirect object pronoun in the sentence he asked about is "le."

Ooops... Would you believe that it was a typo? :oops:

Thank you, Just got around to looking at this again. Henk

I was reading the sentence and I came up with the conclusion that Lo and Le are neutral pronouns. Am I wrong to assume this??? The only thing I gather is that when using these 2 words, you must specify to what gender you are talking somewhere. Can someone shed some light on this? Thanks Anthony