infinitive clauses - Direct object of the verb "want"

John wants Jim to write a letter to the mayor

According to Cambridge, the verb "want" can take the pattern of obj+to-infinitive as a complement, so that means "Jim" here is the direct object of the verb.

However, Ron Cowan in The Teacher's Grammar of English says that "Jim" here is not the direct object of the verb but is the subject in the to-clause. This is because the answer to the question of "What does John want?" is "For Jim to write a letter to the mayor" not merely "Jim". Another test that supports this conclusion is that a passivization can only occur in the complement clause but not in the main clause.

1.John wants Jim to write a letter to the mayor^OK

2.John wants [a letter to be written to the mayor (by Jim).]^OK

3.*[Jim is wanted (by John)] to write a letter to the mayor.^{not OK}

So my question, what is really the direct object of the verb "want"?

Answer

John wants Jim to write a letter to the mayor.

This is a catenative construction in which "Jim" is direct object of "want" (and the 'understood' subject of the subordinate "write" clause". The catenative complement of "want" is "to write a letter to the mayor", not "Jim to write a letter to the mayor", for the latter is not a constituent, but a sequence of direct object + complement.

The fact that we can’t passivise is a lexical property of "want": there are a fair number of exceptions to passivisation (cf. "John would like them to help him", but not *"Them to help him would be liked by John"!)

"Jim" is called a raised object: the verb that "Jim" relates to syntactically is higher in the constituent structure than the one it relates to semantically.