tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 31 08:58:52 1996
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RE: The FAQ section 3.5 -- charghwI' !?!
- From: "d'Armond Speers" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: The FAQ section 3.5 -- charghwI' !?!
- Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 11:58:21 -0500
> >Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 20:10:23 -0800
> >From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>
> >First of all, the closer one looks at direct and indirect objects, even
> >in English, the slipperier it gets. Examples.
> >
> >I go to work. Clearly indirect.
> >I go home. Clearly direct.
>
> Actually, this one is something of a Red Herring. Holtej, check me, but I
> believe that in this construction "home" is considered (get this:) an
> adverb, not a direct object.
Well, in the area of linguistics in which I have my degree, we don't talk about things in terms of "direct" and "indirect" objects. There are terms to describe structural relations in syntax, "complement" and "adjunct." A "complement" describes the syntactic relationship between a verb and what would be the DO. An IO would be an adjunct, as would an adverb.
So, in English, both of Will's sentences show examples of what I'd call adjuncts.
[VP [V' [V' go ] ] [ home ] ] ] adjunct (IO, adverb, whatever)
[VP [V' eat ] [ apples] ] complement
In support of this analysis, think about the verb "go" and the types of things that follow it. You can't say *"I go the store" or *"I go the car." It can't take a DO. It can take certain types of phrases which indicate a direction or location, such as "I go south" or "I go home." With something that genuinely takes a DO, like "eat", there aren't syntactic restrictions on what can go in the DO slot (even if there are semantic ones). "I eat the car." "I eat mud." But there are clear syntactic restrictions on phrases that can go with "go", when the phrase lacks a preposition.
This was quite a lot to say that in "I go home", the word "home" is not a direct object.
--Holtej