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Traditional grammar defines the object in a sentence as the entity that is acted upon by the subject.〔For descriptions of the traditional distinction between subject and object, see for instance Freeborn (1995:31) and Kesner Bland (1996:415).〕 There is thus a primary distinction between subjects and objects that is understood in terms of the action expressed by the verb, e.g. ''Tom studies grammar'' - ''Tom'' is the subject and ''grammar'' is the object. Traditional theories of sentence structure divide the simple sentence into a subject and a predicate,〔The division of the clause into a subject and a predicate is a view of sentence structure that is adopted by most grammars, e.g. Conner (1968:43), Freeborn (1995:121), and Biber et al. (1999:122).〕 whereby the object is taken to be part of the predicate.〔Concerning the fact that the object is part of the predicate, see for instance Biber et al. (1999:122).〕 Many modern theories of grammar (e.g. dependency grammars), in contrast, take the object to be a verb argument like the subject, the difference between them being mainly just their prominence; the subject is ranked higher than the object and is thus more prominent.〔The insight that the arguments and adjuncts of verbs are ranked is expressed as the Accessibility Hierarchy. See Keenan and Comrie (1977).〕 The main verb in a clause determines whether and what objects are present. Transitive verbs require the presence of an object, whereas intransitive verbs block the appearance of an object.〔The distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs is acknowledged by most any grammar. See for instance the Collins Cobuild Grammar (1995:139ff.).〕 The term ''complement'' overlaps in meaning with ''object'': all objects are complements, but not vice versa. The objects that verbs do and do not take is explored in detail in valency theory. ==Types of objects== Various object types are commonly acknowledged: ''direct'', ''indirect'', and ''prepositional''. These object types are illustrated in the following table: ::::: The descriptions "entity acted upon" and "entity indirectly affected by the action" are merely loose orientation points. Beyond basic examples such as those provided in the table, these orientation points are not much help when the goal is to determine whether a given object should be viewed as direct or indirect.〔Concerning the historical distinction between direct and indirect objects, see Conner (1968:108f.).〕 One rule of thumb for English, however, is that an indirect object is not present unless a direct object is also present. A ''prepositional object'' is one that is introduced by a preposition. Despite the difficulties with the traditional nomenclature, the terms ''direct object'' and ''indirect object'' are widespread. The term ''oblique object'' is also employed at times, although what exactly is meant varies from author to author. Some understand it to be an umbrella term denoting all objects (direct, indirect, and prepositional), whereas others use the term to denote just a prepositional object.〔Biber et al. (1999), for instance, use the term ''oblique object'' to denote an object that is introduced by a preposition.〕 Some Chinese verbs can have two direct objects, one being more closely bound to the verb than the other; these may be called "inner" and "outer" objects. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Object (grammar)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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