objectverb

Objectverb is a term used in linguistic discussions to describe a proposed phenomenon in which the object of a sentence is incorporated into the verb, yielding a single verbal complex that encodes both the action and its direct object. The word is a portmanteau of object and verb, and the concept is not a standard, universally adopted category in grammar; it appears mainly in theoretical or description-driven accounts of languages with rich verbal morphology or object incorporation.

In practice, objectverb is related to, but distinct from, object incorporation and polysynthetic tendencies. It centers on the idea that the object marking is fused with the verb itself rather than realized as a separate noun phrase, clitic, or post-verbal phrase. Some analyses treat objectverb as a shorthand for a broader pattern where verbs carry object information through affixes or internal stem changes, while maintaining a separate subject element or agreement system.

Morphology and syntax associated with objectverb typically involve the object being encoded as a bound morpheme on the verb, which can be a suffix, prefix, or an internal modification of the verb stem. The subject may be indicated separately, by a pronoun, or by verbal agreement markers. This construction often coexists with argument structure patterns that favor compact, highly synthetic verb forms and may affect word order by reducing the functional prominence of separate object phrases.

Example (illustrative and hypothetical): Language X uses objectverb by attaching the object to the verb. The sentence “I see the dog” is rendered as I see-dog, where see-dog is a single verb form encoding the action and its object.

Status: Objectverb is a theoretical or illustrative label used to discuss object incorporation phenomena and related verb morphology. It is not a universally recognized category, and its use varies by author and language description.