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In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. [1] In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but are not limited to direct objects, [2] indirect objects, [3] and arguments of adpositions (prepositions or postpositions); the latter are more ...
In English, the first sentence can be rendered as "I sent the book to the man" and as "I sent the man the book", where the indirect object is identified in English by standing in front of the direct object. The normal word order in German is to put the dative in front of the accusative (as in the example above).
The direct object the book is acted upon by the subject, and the indirect object Susan receives the direct object or otherwise benefits from the action. Traditional grammars often begin with these rather vague notions of the grammatical functions.
Verbs that entail two objects, a direct object and an indirect object, are ditransitive, [2] or less commonly bitransitive. [3] An example of a ditransitive verb in English is the verb to give, which may feature a subject, an indirect object, and a direct object: John gave Mary the book. Verbs that take three objects are tritransitive. [4]
dem Seemann(e) "[to/for] the sailor" [as an indirect object] (e.g. Ich gab dem Seemann ein Geschenk – I gave a present to the sailor) den Seemann "the sailor" [as a direct object] (e.g. Ich sah den Seemann – I saw the sailor) An example with the feminine definite article with the German word for "woman".
In languages which mark grammatical case, it is common to differentiate the objects of a ditransitive verb using, for example, the accusative case for the direct object, and the dative case for the indirect object (but this morphological alignment is not unique; see below). In languages without morphological case (such as English for the most ...
A direct relative clause is used where the relativized element is the subject or the direct object of its clause (e.g. "the man who saw me", "the man whom I saw"), while an indirect relative clause is used where the relativized element is a genitival (e.g. "the man whose daughter is in the hospital") or is the object of a preposition (e.g. "the ...
In example (5), the DOC form is not permitted, despite the verb root being single syllable, because [wash] lacks the theta-role of recipient. One explanation for why the verb lacks this theta-role is that there is no possessive relationship between the direct object and the indirect object). [1] (5a) *[John] washed [Mary] [the dishes]