partitiveobject

Partitiveobject is a linguistic term used to describe an object that denotes a portion or partial quantity of a referent. It contrasts with a whole object or with a completely specified quantity. In languages that mark partitivity, the noun phrase serving as the object is encoded to signal non-totality, often through morphological case, a determiner, or a prepositional construction.

The notion covers both mass nouns and plural or count nouns. For mass nouns, a partitive object signals that only a part or an unspecified amount of the substance is involved (for example, water, sand). For count nouns, it can express a subportion of a set (for instance, some of the books, a few of the students). In languages with a dedicated partitive case or distinct partitive constructions, the form of the object noun phrase changes to reflect this partial meaning. In English, the same effect is typically achieved with determiners or quantifiers such as some, a piece of, or some of, rather than a dedicated case ending.

Semantically, partitiveobjects encode indefiniteness or non-totality and are often preferred or required in contexts involving negation, non-specific quantities, or incomplete portions. Syntactically, analyses differ: some treat the partitive object as a separate functional projection within the object domain, while others analyze it as a determiner phrase that realizes partial meaning without a dedicated case system.

Examples:

- Finnish: Ostan vettä. “I am buying some water.”

- English: Would you like some bread? or I ate part of the cake.

- Estonian: Ma joon vett. “I drink water (some).”

See also: partitive case, partitive construction, mass noun, quantification.