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> 委員会は橋本聖子さんに会長を頼むことを決めて ...  
>  The committee decided to ask Hashimoto to become president

I found this phrase a bit confusing. Both verbs in this sentence can take both
に and を at the same time. I think に must go with 頼む in this case since XにYを決める
means "decide on Y as X" and "decided on asking the president as Hashimoto"
makes no sense.

That leaves me with how to understand 橋本聖子さんに会長を頼む. So XにYを頼む means
"ask/request Y of X" and I get "request president of Hashimoto". That makes no
sense. I think I'd have been happy with 橋本聖子さんに会長になることを頼む. Is this
grammatical/natural? Is 橋本聖子さんに会長を頼む just a shorter way of saying this? Have I
completely misparsed everything?

So assuming I have understood this correctly what kind of objects can 頼む take?

An after thought:

If I translate 会長 as "presidency" rather than "president" then all my problems
go away. I wonder if this is the way to think about it.
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2021-02-18T23:21:44.693
84258
2021-02-24T17:45:57.953
2021-02-19T06:24:39.287
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question
grammar parsing
Understanding XにYを頼む
> I think I'd have been happy with 橋本聖子さんに会長になることを頼む. Is this
> grammatical/natural?

It's good but "橋本聖子さんに会長になる **ように** 頼む" is more natural.

> Is 橋本聖子さんに会長を頼む just a shorter way of saying this?

Yes. 頼む can simply take a noun, e.g. 寿司を頼む (order sushi / ask them to make
sushi) and あとを頼む (leave them to do the rest). Usually we don't distinguish
'presidency' and 'president', so I assume 会長 can be translated into both of
them and vice versa.
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2021-02-24T17:45:57.953
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2021-02-24T17:45:57.953
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answer