Is "my hardest" a direct object in "I will try my hardest"?

Question

> I will try my hardest.I am confusing myself by trying to figure out the grammatical relations in this sentence. It is not clear to me whether *my hardest* is a direct object here. If it is not, what kind of complement is it (assuming it is a complement)? If it is a direct object, how can we show this?Another issue: *The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language* analyse phrases such as *the poor, the blind* or *the Dutch* as noun phrases headed by adjectives (they dub them *fused modifier-head* constructions). Is *my hardest* a noun phrase in the sentence above. If so, why? If not, why not?

Answer 1

Yes, my hardest is a direct object in the sentence "I will try my hardest".

According to The English Language Guide, direct object answers the question "What?" or "Who?".

For example, in your sentence the what question is “What will you try?” The answer is “I will try my hardest.” You are correct in asking further questions, and if you’ve checked The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language publication, I’m sure you discovered there is a lot of debate about that identical sentence.