6. THE OBJECT

I. DEFINITION

The O is a secondary part of the sentence denoting participants in some way affected or involved in the verbal action; it is substantival constituent which goes with transitive verbs, e.g. John read a book.
O are constituents “tied” to the verbal predicate whereas C refer to some constituent in the sentence /usually S or O/ as a complementation.

II. TYPES OF OBJECTS
Traditionally O are subdivided into direct and indirect O depending on their relation /involvement/ to the verbal action.

1. The Od – this is the only O with monotransitive verbs, e.g.: to break, to kill, to read, to drink, to know: break the window, know this picture.

2. The Oi is the second O /along with Od/ taken by ditransitive verbs like: to give, to send, to show,

 e.g.: The boy gave the girl an apple.

 FEATURES OF Oi:
1. It comes before Od; the only exception is when Od is a pronoun, 

cf. I gave him the book – I gave it him.

2. The Oi cannot stand alone – it must go together with Od, e.g.:* He gave the girl /could be mixed with Od/.

3. The Oi is always animate, while Od could be animate or not. 

The animacy of Oi is the cause why it has greater importance for the verbal action and has priority /closer to the verb/ in the word order of the clause. This is due to the so called “androcentric” tendency in language according to which animate constituents are more important and more closely related to the verbal centre /hub/ - this explains why Oi precedes Od.

4. Oi can paraphrase into a prepositional O with TO, e.g.: He gave the girl an apple- He gave an apple to the girl. In this case the animate constituent is placed at the end because of another tendency in language for “heavier, larger” constituents to be placed towards the end of the expression.

The variety of Oi is the so called benefactive O denoting the participant for whose benefit something is done. The difference from Oi is made evident in the paraphrase – Oi paraphrases with TO, while Obe paraphrases with FOR, cf. He gave the boy a toy /a toy to the boy/. He called the girl a taxi /a taxi for the girl/.

5. Any O /including Oi/ in English may correspond to a S in a passive sentence, e.g.: He sent his mother a letter.- His mother was sent a letter /Oi- S/. – A letter was sent to his mother /Od-S, Oi- Oprep/.

N.B. The Oi is non-prepositional; there is no such thing as a prepositional Oi! There is a small group of verbs in English which take two Objects but the distinction between Oi and Od in this group is to large extent neutralized. Some examples: to envy sb sth, to forgive sb sth, to ask sb a question, to strike sb a blow, e.g.: She envied him /O1/ the car/O2/.O1 looks like Oi because it comes first and it is animate. However it is not Oi because: 1. it can stand alone without Od, 2. unlike Oi, O1 above cannot paraphrase as a Oprep with TO, e.g.: *She envied the car to him. For these reasons cases like that are treated as verbs with two Od. 

III. SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF OBJECTS

1. The Od can have the following semantic roles:
1.1. Affected participant – directly affected by the verbal action, e.g.: John broke the radio.
1.2. Effected participant – denotes a participant/thing which results from, is created by, comes into existence by virtue of the verbal action, e.g.: John invented the radio. To write a letter, to paint a picture, to build a house etc.

N.B. Only affected objects can logically serve as an answer to the question “What did X do to Y? cf. What did John do to the radio?- He broke it /affected/, *He invented it /effected/.

1.3. Locative O – this type usually results from prepositional adverbial modifiers where the preposition is dropped, e.g.: He passed the house /by the house/. He traveled the whole world. This is the house I live. He swam /across/ the river. They walked /along/ the streets. The horse jumped /over/ the fence.

1.4. Cognate O – from the same or similar root as the verb, e.g.: to sing a song, to dream a dream, to fight a fight to live a miserable life, to die a happy death, to run a race, to act a part.

2.The Oi has only one major semantic role, that of recipient and it is normally animate, e.g.: They sent the teacher a postcard.
Exception: in phraseological expressions Oi may be different, e.i. not recipient and not animate, e.g.: I gave the car /Oi af/ a wash /Od ef/.= I washed the car. She paid me /Oi af/ a visit /Od ef/ = She visited me.
However expressions like these may also be interpreted as simple phraseological predicates where the O is incorporated in the predicate phrase /give a wash = wash/.

IV. MORPHOLOGICAL REALIZATION

Morphologically O fall into two major types:

1. Non-prepositional – Oi and Od.

2. Prepositional O has a preposition and it should be differentiated from the prepositional adverbial modifier, cf. He waited for the girl/ for the bus/ for Godot – Oprep. I waited at the corner/ in bed/ on the roof – adverbial modifier.

In the case of Oprep the preposition is determined /governated/ by the verb. In the prepositional adverbial modifier the preposition is determined by the semantic of the adverbial modifier, not by the verb.

3. In addition there is also Ocomplex which is made up of two constituents:

3.1. Od + Co: She made him a hero.

3.2. Non-finite structure /nexus/: I saw him run /nexus Ocom with infinitive/. I saw him running /nexus Ocom with –ing form/. I saw him ruined /nexus Ocom with past participle/.

4. Finally, there is a mixed type of Ocom with the ‘for…to…’ construction(prepositional complex object).Eg: They waited for the lecture to be over.

Prep+nexus Ocom+inf to be
The ‘for…to…’ construction indicates the subject of the infinitive 
when it is different from the main subject.

With link emphasis:
e.g.They waited for the lecture to be over and over it was.
…and over it was.
e.g.She wanted to marry him and marry him she did.