O-Obk | Sank's Glossary of Linguistics

Sank's Glossary of Linguistics
O-Obk

OBJECT CLEFT CONSTRUCTION

(Syntax) Sentence in which the clefted constituent is the thematic object.
1. It's a cat (O) that the dog (S) is chasing (V).
A well-established finding in adult language processing is that constructions involving object-gaps, including object clefts, take adults longer to process than those involving subject-gaps (Wanner and Marastos 1978, Gibson 1998, Warren and Gibson 2002, Tily et al. 2010, a.o). | Athulya Aravind, Martin Hackl and Ken Wexler, 2017
(Syntax) In an object cleft such as (1), the pronoun whom replaces the object of the verb thanked in the cleft clause.
1. It was we whom the mayor thanked.
  (The cleft clause refers to the object we.)
| Elizabeth S. Johnson, 2015

OBJECT DROP

(Syntax) A subset of transitive verbs (non-core transitives, Levin 1999, 2017) allow object drop in English:
1. Verbs of contact—hitting, wiping, sweeping, pushing, etc. among them:
  I'll sweep e!
2. Scenario: Cleaning dishes after dinner party:
  John washed e_i and Mary dried e_i.
3. Scenario: A car has stalled by the side of the road. John and Mary are trying to get it started again:
  Mary pushed e_i and John steered e_i.
Glass (2014) amasses a corpus of examples of object drop and makes an interesting observation about them: If the action denoted by the verb is associated with a routine action with a predictable object, object drop is possible:
1. I haven't played e all week. (Musicians? Soccer players?)
Glass finds higher rates of object drop with lift in weight-lifting magazines, and with buy and sell in real estate magazines. Her proposal: A dropped object with a transitive predicate must be recoverable. Recoverability can depend on the "common ground" of a particular community or on the speaker's goals in a context.
Other grammatical factors also facilitate object drop. Examples from Goldberg 2001:
1. Generic
  Tigers only kill e at night.
2. Modal
  Dresses I would murder e for.
3. Repeated action
  Scarface killed e again.
4. Infinitive
  The singer always aimed to please/impress e.
| Raffaella Folli and Heidi Harley, 2023
(Syntax) Which normally transitive verbs can omit their objects in English (e.g., I ate), and why? Three factors are suggested to facilitate object omission:
1. How strongly a verb selects its object (Resnik 1993).
2. A verb's frequency (Goldberg 2005).
3. The extent to which the verb is associated with a routine—a recognized, conventional series of actions within a community (Lambrecht and Lemoine 2005, Ruppenhofer and Michaelis 2010, Levin and Rapaport Hovav 2014, Martí 2010, 2015).
| Lelia Glass, 2022

OBJECT FRONTING
(Example) As documented in Speyer (2010), the overall rate of object fronting declines over time, so that object fronting in Modern English occurs much less frequently than it did in Old English. This leads one to wonder whether object fronting is in the process of disappearing from the English language. Speyer (2010), however, suggests a different way of understanding the trend. Speyer argues that the general decline in object fronting is not an independent syntactic change in the grammar of English. Old English had a grammar that generated verb-second (V2) word orders like those found in German, although the distribution of V2 patterns was limited to clauses with certain subject types (cf. Pintzuk 1991, Fischer et al. 2000). Over time, these V2-like word orders disappeared as the grammar of English changed. Speyer claims that this is the key to understanding object fronting in English: the loss of V2 word orders limited the environments in which fronting is prosodically well-formed, leading to an apparent decline in fronting. | Jon Stevens and Caitlin Light, 2013

OBJECT SHIFT

(Syntax) The definition of object shift to be used here is a narrow one, covering only the kind of object shift typically found in the Scandinavian languages, following the original use of the term in Holmberg (1986). Sometimes object shift has been taken to include also at least some instances of scrambling as found in the Continental West Germanic languages (Afrikaans, Dutch, Frisian, German, and Yiddish).
Scrambling, as in the German (1b) and (1c), and object shift, as in Icelandic (2b) and (2c) and Danish (3c), have in common that both move a DP leftward, from a position inside VP to a position outside VP but inside the same clause:
1. Scrambling in German
  1. Peter
    Peter
    
    hat_v
    has
    
    ohne
    without
    
    Zweifel
    doubt
    
    nie
    never
    
    [_VP
    
    Bücher
    books
    
    gelesen]
    read
    
    t_v
  2. Peter
    Peter
    
    las_v
    read
    
    die
    the
    
    Bücher_i
    books
    
    ohne
    without
    
    Zweifel
    doubt
    
    nie
    never
    
    [_VP
    
    t_i
    
    t_v]
  3. Peter
    Peter
    
    las_v
    read
    
    sie_i
    them
    
    ohne
    without
    
    Zweifel
    doubt
    
    nie
    never
    
    [_VP
    
    t_i
    
    t_v]
2. Object shift in Icelandic
  1. Pétur
    Peter
    
    hefur_v
    has
    
    eflaust
    doubtlessly
    
    aldrei
    never
    
    t_v
    
    [_VP
    
    lesið
    read
    
    bækur]
    books
  2. Pétur
    Peter
    
    las_v
    read
    
    bækurnari
    books-the
    
    eflaust
    doubtlessly
    
    aldrei
    never
    
    [_VP
    
    t_v
    
    t_i]
  3. Pétur
    Peter
    
    las_v
    read
    
    þæ
    them
    
    eflaust
    doubtlessly
    
    aldrei
    never
    
    [_VP
    
    t_v
    
    t_i]
3. Object shift in Danish
  1. Peter
    Peter
    
    har_v
    has
    
    uden
    without
    
    tvivl
    doubt
    
    aldrig
    never
    
    t_v
    
    [_VP
    
    læst
    read
    
    bøger]
    books
  2. *Peter
    Peter
    
    læste_v
    read
    
    bøgernei
    books-the
    
    uden
    without
    
    tvivl
    doubt
    
    aldrig
    never
    
    [_VP
    
    t_v
    
    t_i]
  3. Peter
    Peter
    
    læste_v
    read
    
    dem_i
    them
    
    uden
    without
    
    tvivl
    doubt
    
    aldrig
    never
    
    [_VP
    
    t_v
    
    t_i]
All the above examples are verb second (V2), i.e., the finite verb has been moved from the position marked t_v to its present position as the second constituent of the main clause. In addition, in all examples the base position of the object is inside the VP, i.e., to the right of the adverbials 'no doubt' and 'never', cf. (1a), (2a), and (3a). When scrambling (1b, 1c) or object shift (2b, 2c, 3c) takes place, the object moves to a position to the left of these adverbials. From these examples, which focus on the similarities between object shift and scrambling, it might appear that there are no differences. This is not so; there are many differences between the two types of movement, as object shift is much more restricted than scrambling. Only object shift requires verb movement, and only object shift is restricted to DPs. | Sten Vikner, 2005
(Syntax) A characteristic feature of the Scandinavian languages. It has been studied extensively (cf. Holmberg 1986, 1999, Holmberg and Platzack 1995, Vikner 1995, 2006, Josefsson 2003, 2010, Thráinsson 2001, Erteschik-Shir 2005, Fox and Pesetsky 2005, Andréasson 2008, 2009, 2010, [2013], Mikkelsen 2011, Anderssen and Bentzen 2012, Anderssen et al. 2012, Bentzen et al. 2013, Østbø Munch 2013, a.o.). The typical pattern, illustrated in (1), shows that (weak/unstressed) pronominal objects have to shift across negation (and other adverbs). This pattern generally holds true across the Scandinavian languages. However, with respect to DP objects, there is a distinction between Icelandic, where such objects may occur in front of negation/adverbs, and the Mainland Scandinavian languages (MSc) and Faroese, where DP objects have to follow these elements, as shown in (2). (The Icelandic example in (2a) is taken from Thráinsson 2001):
1. Norwegian
  
  a.
  
  Jeg
  I
  
  så
  saw
  
  den
  it
  
  ikke.
  not
  
  b.
  
  %
  
  Jeg
  I
  
  så
  saw
  
  ikke
  not
  
  den.
  it
  
  'I didn't see it.'
2. a. Icelandic
  
  Jón
  John
  
  las
  read
  
  {bókina}
  book.the
  
  aldrei
  never
  
  {bókina}.
  book.the
  
  b. Norwegian
  
  Jon
  John
  
  leste
  read
  
  {*boken}
  book.the
  
  aldri
  never
  
  {boken}.
  book.the
  
  'John never read the book.'
| Kristine Bentzen, 2014

OBJECT TOPICALIZATION
(Syntax) If topicalization involves A′-movement, under the Relativized Minimality approach, children should show comprehension difficulties in object topicalization sentences (with the OSV order) as compared to subject topicalization sentences (with the SVO order).

Mandarin Chinese

a.

[ Zhe-ge
this-CL

haizi_i ] _S
child

(ya),
(TOP)

e_i

zai
PROG

hua
draw

[ waipo ] _O .
grandma

(subject topicalization)

'As for this child, (he) is drawing the grandma.'

b.

[ Zhe-ge
this-CL

haizi_i ] _O
child

(ya),
(TOP)

[ waipo ] _S
grandma

zai
PROG

hua
draw

e_i .

(object topicalization)

'As for this child, the grandma is drawing (him).'

| Shenai Hu, 2014

OBJECTHOOD

(Syntax) The standard (syntactic) definition of a transitive construction refers to the presence of a direct object (DO). That is, the presence of a DO is considered a feature equivalent to transitivity. (See Lazard 1998, Plungjan and Raxilina 1998, Kittilä 2002, Næss 2007, a.o.) Accordingly, transitive constructions can be determined as those, and only those, that require a DO. Thus, verifying transitivity of a clause amounts to the verification of the objecthood of those nouns which can be considered potential candidates for DOs.
The passivization test (also referred to by some authors as "subjectivization"), appears to be the most, if not the only, reliable DO criterion, even in spite of the fact that some languages lack a passive. | Leonid Kulikov, 2012
(Grammar) The notion object has proved useful in the description of grammatical phenomena in and across languages as it picks out a set of noun phrases characterized by a convergence of what Keenan (1976) calls behavioral and coding properties. Concomitantly, this notion has even been taken as a primitive within certain approaches to linguistic representation (e.g. Relational Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar) and as amenable to a configurational definition in others (e.g. the Government-Binding framework).
Nevertheless, the notion "object" continues to pose a challenge for linguistic theory. For instance, to the extent that it is applicable crosslinguistically, there is a fair amount of variation across languages as to the set of verbs taking NPs identified as objects. Furthermore, it is difficult—and some might even say impossible—to provide a uniform semantic characterization of all objects within or across languages, even if there is agreement that the prototypical objects are "patients"—what are sometimes called "affected" arguments. These problems reflect the semantic underpinnings of the notion "object". Since transitive verbs necessarily have objects, a challenge for theories of transitivity is how to deal with the just-mentioned problems involving the semantic correlates of objecthood. | Beth Levin, 1999

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