Dobj

dobj is an abbreviation for direct object in linguistics. It refers to the noun phrase or pronoun that directly receives the action of a transitive verb. In dependency grammar frameworks such as Universal Dependencies, dobj marks the syntactic link between a verb and its direct object.

In English, the direct object typically follows the verb, as in “She kicked the ball,” where “the ball” is the direct object. The direct object often answers questions like “what?” or “whom?” and can be a full noun phrase or a pronoun, for example “I saw him.” In passive constructions, the direct object can move to subject position, as in “The ball was kicked by her.”

Cross-linguistically, objects can be marked differently. Some languages use case marking (for example, accusative) to signal the direct object, while others rely on word order or prepositions. Direct objects may also interact with other object-type elements, such as indirect objects (iobj) or oblique objects, depending on the verb and language.

In computational linguistics, dobj is a common dependency label used by parsers to represent the direct object relation between verbs and their immediate receivers. It plays a role in tasks such as syntactic parsing, information extraction, and machine translation by helping to identify what action is performed on which entity.

Overall, the direct object is a fundamental component of transitive sentence structure, serving as the primary recipient of a verb’s action and shaping how events and arguments are represented across languages.