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Linguistics & Grammar vocabulary · Clauses and Sentences

Object

Meaning in linguistics & grammar, with examples

/ˈɒbdʒɪkt/nounCore term

In linguistics & grammar, object means: A noun phrase or pronoun that receives the action of a verb or follows a preposition, such as 'the email' in 'She sent the email'.

In Turkish: nesne

How it is used

Grammar books distinguish direct objects (She sent the email) from indirect objects (She sent me the email). Only transitive verbs take objects. In English the object normally follows the verb.

Example sentences

  1. In 'She gave the students a test', 'a test' is the direct object and 'the students' is the indirect object.

  2. Object pronouns come after the verb: 'I saw him', not 'I him saw'.

Common collocations

  • direct object
  • indirect object
  • object pronoun
  • object of a preposition
  • subjectThe part of a clause that usually names who or what does the action or is described, and that the verb agrees with, such as 'my sister' in 'My sister works here'.
  • transitive verbA verb that needs a direct object to complete its meaning, such as make, describe or enjoy: 'She described the problem'.
  • predicateThe part of a clause that says something about the subject; it contains the verb and everything that follows it, such as 'missed the bus' in 'Emre missed the bus'.
  • clauseA group of words that contains a subject and a verb and forms a sentence or part of a sentence, such as 'because it was raining'.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Clauses and Sentences

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