The Object

The object is a linguistic unit serving to make the verb more complete, more special, or limit its sphere of distribution.

The divergency of relations between verbs and their objects is manifold. The completive bond in many, if not in all, languages covers a wide and varied range of structural meaning. This seems to be a universal linguistic feature and may be traced in language after language. But though English shares this feature with a number of tongues its structural development has led to such distinctive idiosyncratic traits as deserve a good deal of attention.

A verb-phrase has frequently a dual nature of an object and an adverbial modifier. Structures of this sort are potentially ambiguous and are generally distinguished by rather subtle formal indications aided by lexical probability.

The syntactic value of linguistic elements in a position of object is naturally conditioned by the lexical meaning of the verb, its related noun and their correlation. Regrettable mistakes occur if this is overlooked.

The dichotomic classification into prepositional and prepositionless objects seems practical and useful. It is to be noted, however, that the division based on the absence or presence of the preposition must be taken with an important point of reservation concerning the objects which

have two forms: prepositional and prepositionless depending on the word-order in a given phrase, e. g.: to show him the book — to show the book to him; to give her the letter — to give the letter to her.

The trichotomic division of objects into direct, indirect and prepositional has its own demerits. It is based on different criteria which in many cases naturally leads to the overlap of indirect and prepositional classes.

Object relations cannot be studied without a considerable reference to the lexical meaning of the verb.

Instances are not few when putting an object after the verb changes the lexical meaning of the verb. And there is a system behind such developments in the structure of English different from practice in other languages.

Compare the use of the verbs to run and to fly in the following examples:

a) to run fast, to run home;

b) to run a factory, to run the house, to run a car into a garage;

a) to fly in the air;

b) to fly passengers, to fly a plane, to fly a flag.

In attempting to identify the linguistic status of different kind of objects in Modern English G. G. Pocheptsov advocates other criteria for their classification based on the relation between the verb and its object in the syntactic structure of the sentence. Due attention is given to the formal indications which, however, are considered secondary in importance to content. The classification is based on the dichotomy of the two basic types:object-object and addressee-object. The former embraces the traditional direct object and the prepositional object as its two sub-types. The addressee-object has two variants different in form: prepositionless and prepositional. The object of result, cognate object, etc., are considered to have no status as object types and are but particular groupings within the boundaries of the two basic types of object outlined above¹. This may be diagrammed as follows:

Types of Object	Object-object	Addressee-object
Sub-types of Object	direct	prepositional
Types of Bond	prepositionless	prepositional	prepositionless	prepositional
Examples:	He knew this.	He knew of this.	He gave me a letter.	He gave a letter to me.

¹ See: Г. Г. Почепцов. О принципах синтагматической классификации глагола (на материале глагольной системы современного английского языка). «Филологические науки», 1969, No. 3.

The identification of object relations from the above given angle of view is not devoid of logical foundation and seems practical and useful.

Verb-phrases with Prepositionless Object

To identify the semantic and structural traits of different variants of verb-phrases we shall compare the following:

(A) dig ground, meet our friends, build a house, observe the stars, etc.

(B) walk the streets, sit a horse, smile a sunny smile, bow one's thanks, nod approval, etc.

With all their similarity, the two types of verb-phrases differ essentially in their syntactic content. The former imply that the person or thing is directly affected by the action, i. e. the action is directed to the object which completes the verbal idea and limits it at the same time. The duty of the object in examples (B) is to characterise the action; the phrase therefore is descriptive of something that is felt as characteristic of the action itself.

Phrases of group (A) are fairly common. A limiting object may be expressed by nouns of different classes, concrete and abstract, living beings and inanimate things, names of material, space and time. The range of verbs taking such kind of objects is known to be very wide.

Phrases of group (B) are somewhat limited in their use. The range of verbs taking such descriptive objects is rather small. Many patterns of this kind are idiosyncratic in their character. Some verbs which are generally intransitive acquire a transitive meaning only in such collocation.

Objects of group (A) are functionally identical in their limiting character but are contrasted to each other in the following terms:

1) the outer character of the action: the object is acted upon without any inner change in the object itself, as in: dig the ground, clean the blackboard, apply the rule, dress the child, take a book, send a letter, etc.;

2) the inner character of the action: the object is acted upon, which results in some inner changes in the object itself: improving the method, injured the tree, weakened the meaning, intensified the idea, etc.;

3) the resultative character of the action. This kind of objects presents no difficulty and no particular interest, e. g.: painted a picture, made the dress, wrote a monograph, built a house, etc

The same kind of object is obvious after verbs like beget, create, develop, draw, construct, invent, manufacture, etc.

In terms of transformational analysis, phrases of group (A) are characterised by the following:

1) pronominal transformation — noun-objects may be replaced by corresponding pronominal forms, e. g.: dug it, dressed it, took it, washed it (the linen), violated it (the rule), etc.

2) transformation through nominalisation:

dig the ground — digging the ground;

violating the rule — the violation of the rule;

he approved our choice — his approval of our choice.

3) adjectivisation:

she washed her linen — her washed linen; he deserted his friend — his deserted friend; forgot his promise — forgetful of his promise.

Verb-phrases of group (B) have some characteristic features of their own.

Compare the following:

(a) He writes a good letter;

(b) He writes a good hand.

He strikes me as capable, orderly, and civil; I don't see what more you want in a clerk. He writes a good hand, and so far I can see he tells the truth. (Galsworthy)

Phrases of group (B) can have overlapping relations of manner and consequence:

Such are phrases with the so-called cognate object ¹, e. g.: to live a life, to fight a fight, to laugh a laugh, to smile a sunny smile, to fight a battle, etc.

The syntactic content of such verb-phrases can be adequately explained by transformational analysis, e. g.:

He has fought the good fight → ...has fought so as to produce the good fight.

He lived the life of an exile →... his manner of living was that of an exile.

Combinations of this kind are found with verbs that are otherwise intransitive (live, smile).

Phrases with the cognate object are stylistic alternatives of corresponding simple verbs: to live a life = to live; to smile a smile = to smile, etc. functioning as an easy means of adding some descriptive trait to the predicate which it would be difficult to add to the verb in some other form. To fight the good fight, for instance, is semantically different from to fight well; he laughed his usual careless laugh is not absolutely synonymous with he laughed carelessly as usual.

Cognate objects commonly have attributive adjuncts attached to them.

Having said that Jolyon was ashamed. His cousin had flushed a dusky yellowish red. What had made him tease the poor brute? (Galsworthy)

He laughed suddenly a ringing free laugh that startled the echoes in the dark woods. (Mitchell)

She frowned at his facetiousness — a pretty, adorable frown that made him put his arm around her and kiss it away. (London)

Winter snowed its snow, created a masterpiece of arctic mist and rain until a vanguard convoy of warm days turned into Easter, with supplies of sun run surreptitiously through from warmer lands. (Sillitoe)

The chief point of linguistic interest is presented by V + N phrases with intransitive verbs where the relations between verb and noun lead to the formation of special lexical meanings. The use of verbs which are otherwise semantically intransitive in V + N patterns is fairly com-

¹ Other terms of "cognate object" are: "inner object", "object of content", "factitive object" (an older term is "figura etymologica").

mon. Verbs involved in such syntactic relations undergo considerable semantic changes. Some of them acquire a causative meaning, e. g. to run a horse, to run a business, walk the horses, etc.

Verbs of seeing, such as to look, gaze, stare, glare, which are generally used with a prepositional object, when employed in V + N patterns develop the meaning "to express by looking", as in: She looked her surprise; He said nothing but glanced a question; She stared her discontent.

Similarly: to breathe relief, to sob repentance, to roar applause, to smile appreciation, to bray a laugh and still others.

As we see, patterns of this sort are frequent with verbs which are otherwise intransitive, as in:

"Because..." Brissenden sipped his toddy and smiled appreciation of it. (London)

Further examples are:

She nodded approval.

He bowed his thanks.

She beamed satisfaction.

She laughed her thanks.

He breathed his astonishment.

He could only stare his surprise.

Somewhat related to these formations are such grammatical idioms where some special addition to a secondary word cannot conveniently be expressed by means of a subject: a predicative-word is consequently loosely attached to the sentence as the bearer of the specialisation in the form of modifier, as in: her face was very pale, a greyish pallor.

Not infrequently modifying words are introduced by the preposition with. Consider the following examples:

Not much give and take about Desert — restless, disharmonic, and a poet! And proud — with that inner self-depreciation pride which never let up on a man. (Galsworthy)

Similarly:

She was pretty, with the prettiness of twenty.

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