linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, an object is any of several types of

arguments An argument is a series of sentences, statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give reasons for one's conclusion via justification, explanation, and/or persua ...

. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that entails one or more transitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' in ''Amadeus enjoys music''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in ''Beatrice arose ...

typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but are not limited to direct objects, indirect objects, and arguments of adpositions ( prepositions or postpositions); the latter are more accurately termed ''oblique arguments'', thus including other arguments not covered by core grammatical roles, such as those governed by case morphology (as in languages such as

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

) or relational nouns (as is typical for members of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area). In ergative-absolutive languages, for example most

Australian Aboriginal languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

, the term "subject" is ambiguous, and thus the term " agent" is often used instead to contrast with "object", such that basic word order is often spoken of in terms such as Agent-Object-Verb (AOV) instead of Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). Topic-prominent languages, such as Mandarin, focus their grammars less on the subject-object or agent-object dichotomies but rather on the pragmatic dichotomy of

topic and comment In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generall ...

Types

English

In English traditional grammar types, three types of object are acknowledged: ''direct objects'', ''indirect objects'', and ''objects of prepositions''. These object types are illustrated in the following table: Indirect objects are frequently expressed as objects of prepositions, complicating the traditional typology; e.g. "I gave salt ''to the man''."

Other languages

Some Chinese verbs can have two direct objects, one being more closely bound to the verb than the other; these may be called "inner" and "outer" objects. Secundative languages lack a distinction between direct and indirect objects, but rather distinguish primary and secondary objects. Many African languages fall into this typological category.

Syntactic category

While the typical object is a pronoun, noun, or noun phrase, objects can also appear as other

syntactic categories A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasa ...

, as illustrated in the following table for the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

: :::::

Identification

A number of criteria can be employed for identifying objects, e.g.: # Subject of passive sentence: Most objects in active sentences can become the subject in the corresponding passive sentences. # Position occupied: In languages with strict

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...

, the subject and the object tend to occupy set positions in unmarked declarative clauses. # Morphological case: In languages that have case systems, objects are marked by certain cases (accusative, dative, genitive, instrumental, etc.). Languages vary significantly with respect to these criteria. The first criterion identifies objects reliably most of the time in English, e.g. * Fred gave me a book. * A book was given (to) me.—Passive sentence identifies ''a book'' as an object in the starting sentence. * I was given a book.—Passive sentence identifies ''me'' as an object in the starting sentence. The second criterion is also a reliable criterion for

analytic language An analytic language is a type of natural language in which a series of root/stem words is accompanied by prepositions, postpositions, particles and modifiers, using affixes very rarely. This is opposed to synthetic languages, which synthesi ...

s such as English, since the relatively strict word order of English usually positions the object after the verb(s) in declarative sentences. In the majority of languages with fixed word order, the subject precedes the object. However, the opposite is true for the very small proportion (approximately 2.9%) of the world's languages that utilize

object–subject word order In linguistic typology, object–subject (OS) word order, also called O-before-S or patient–agent word order, is a word order in which the object (linguistics), object appears before the subject (linguistics), subject. OS is notable for its ...

by default.

Verb classes

Verbs can be classified according to the number and/or type of objects that they do or do not take. The following table provides an overview of some of the various verb classes: ::::: Ergative and object-deletion verbs can be transitive or intransitive, as indicated in the following table: :::::::::: The distinction drawn here between ergative and object-deletion verbs is based on the role of the subject. The object of a transitive ergative verb is the subject of the corresponding intransitive ergative verb. With object-deletion verbs, in contrast, the subject is consistent regardless of whether an object is or is not present.

In sentence structure

Objects are distinguished from subjects in the syntactic trees that represent sentence structure. The subject appears (as high or) higher in the syntactic structure than the object. The following trees of a

dependency grammar Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern Grammar, grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of Phrase structure grammar, phrase structure) and that can be traced back prima ...

illustrate the hierarchical positions of subjects and objects:Dependency trees similar to the ones produced here can be found in Ágel et al. (2003/6). :: Grammatical_objects

The subject is in blue, and the object in orange. The subject is consistently a dependent of the

finite verb A finite verb is a verb that contextually complements a subject, which can be either explicit (like in the English indicative) or implicit (like in null subject languages or the English imperative). A finite transitive verb or a finite intra ...

, whereas the object is a dependent of the lowest

non-finite verb Non-finite verbs, are verb forms that do not show tense, person, or number. They include: # Infinitives (e.g., to go, to see) - They often function as nouns or the base form of a verb # Gerunds (e.g., going, seeing) - These act as nouns but are ...

if such a verb is present.

Notes

Literature

*Ágel, V., L. Eichinger, H.-W. Eroms, P. Hellwig, H. Heringer, and H. Lobin (eds.) 2003/6. Dependency and valency: An international handbook of contemporary research. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. *Biber, D. et al. 1999. Longman Grammar of spoken and written English. Essex, England: Pearson Education limited. *Carnie, A. 2013. Syntax: A generative introduction, 3rd edition. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. *Collins Cobuild English Grammar 1995. London: HarperCollins Publishers. *Conner, J. 1968. A grammar of standard English. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. *Freeborn, D. 1995. A course book in English grammar: Standard English and the dialects, 2nd edition. London: MacMillan Press LTD. *Keenan, E. and B. Comrie 1977. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 8. 63–99. *Kesner Bland, S. Intermediate grammar: From form to meaning and use. New York: Oxford University Press.

External links

Direct Objects
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Object (grammar) Syntactic entities