Re: Objective

Akhilesh wrote:

> Can someone tell me the difference between the direct and indirect
> objectives and its relation to importance in a conlang?
When a verb allows more than one object to be expressed as a core object
then you may need to hierarchy them in some way. Some langs allow only one
core object and tag any other object with another predicate made a tag. For
instance: I speak address you / I give ball grant you / I defend home fight
enemy / I talk regard problem / I operate ax cut tree. This is pretty much
the way I settle the question of "direct" vs. "oblique" objects in my
conlangs.

When I compare "I build a house" and "I destroy the house" I can see that in
the first sentence "the house" is a result while in the second it is a
patient. "I sing a song": "song" is a performance. "I enter the house":
spatial reference. "I see the house" is different as well. Etc. I see no
reason for all these different direct objects to be tagged the same
way--i.e. with zero tag or an "accusative" or an objective clitic--except
that they are precisely picked as direct objects. Reversely the "oblique"
object in English (and other languages) is tagged with different
prepositions or cases. Examples: I talk of the problem to you / I discuss
the problem with you / I defend my home from the enemy. But some langs use
only one or two tags on most oblique objects like Pidgin preposition "long"
and Japanese clitic "ni" are used to translate both the prepositions "to"
and "from" in the sentences above. Also, there are English verbs with
oblique object and no direct object that may be translated in another
language as a verb with a direct object and vice versa.

IMHO you are the only one to decide about the difference of DO and OO/IO in
your conlang and invent something new.

Mathias

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