Summary

Three major relationships hold between verbs and their complement nouns (and noun phrases) – subject, direct object and oblique object. There are languages in which the concept of subject cannot be easily applied, but in many languages one noun, the grammatical subject, is closely linked to the verb in a clause. The subject noun and the verb are linked in number (in English) and in person and number in other languages. The subject noun controls the interpretation of infinitives and reflexive pronouns; in Emma wanted to help Harriet, help is traditionally described as having an understood subject which is identical with the subject of wanted, namely Emma. In Emma despised herself, the reflexive pronoun herself is interpreted as referring to Emma. Grammatical subject nouns typically, though not always, denote Agents and they are typically first in clauses, thereby being the starting point of the messages conveyed. Direct object nouns, in English, immediately follow the verb in the active declarative construction and correspond to the grammatical subject of passive clauses – Fiona phoned John vs John was phoned by Fiona. In languages with sets of case suffixes, grammatical subject nouns take one set of case suffixes and direct object nouns another. In Indo-European languages, these are nominative for subject and accusative for direct object. Oblique objects are nouns that are complement to a preposition, as in (spoke) about music and (sent the letter) to the manager. In examples such as gave a present to Bill, with verbs such as GIVE, SHOW and TELL, to Bill was traditionally called the indirect object. Since these are very difficult to distinguish from directional phrases, the notion of indirect object has been abandoned in favor of oblique object but has been kept for the construction with three noun phrases, as in Emma gave Harriet advice.