accusativedirect

Accusativedirect is a linguistic term used to describe the direct object of a transitive verb when it is marked by the accusative case, or the syntactic configuration in which the direct object carries accusative morphology. The term blends “accusative” and “direct object” to emphasize overt case marking as a key feature of the object within a sentence. It is not a formal, universally standardized category in all grammars, but a convenient label in typological and descriptive discussions.

In languages with overt case systems, the direct object often bears the accusative case, distinguishing it from subjects or other arguments. For example, in German the sentence Ich sehe den Mann (I see the man) uses den Mann with accusative marking to indicate the direct object. In Russian, Ya vizhu muzhchinu (I see a man), the direct object muzhchinu is likewise in the accusative form. Some languages employ additional or different strategies, such as Turkish with postfix markers that signal accusative for the direct object, or rely on word order and clitics in combination with case marking.

Accusativedirect is primarily a descriptive label used in cross-linguistic surveys and theoretical discussions about transitivity and object marking. It helps contrast languages that rely on explicit case morphology for the direct object with those that rely primarily on syntactic position, agreement, or null-marking. Related concepts include the accusative case, direct object, and various alignment systems (nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive). See also: Accusative case, Direct object, Transitivity.