Object incorporation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Object incorporation is a linguistic valency-decreasing operation employed by a number of languages, in particular those with highly synthetic morphologies. Object incorporation is a kind of noun incorporation, more common than the similar process of subject incorporation.

As a formal process, object incorporation derives an intransitive verb from a transitive one. This is achieved by incorporating a noun form referring to the object of a verb into the verb form itself.

The following is an example of object incorporation taken from Panare. The first sentence is the incorporated form, and the second the unincorporated:

(1)	y-u'-kïti-ñe	amën
	3-head-cut-NONPERF.TRANS	2SG
	"You head-cut it."

(2)	y-ipu-n	yï-kïti-ñe	amën
	3-head-POSS	TRNS-cut-NONPERF.TRNS	2SG
	"You cut its head."

Notice also that in these examples, the incorporated form of "head", u', and the unincorporated form ipu differ, a common feature of object incorporation.