Prime object

The term prime object has occasionally been used for primary object.

Comments

Comrie (1982), which used "prime object", was written before Dryer (1986), which made the alternative term primary object well-known.

• "As far as verb agreement is concerned, then, we seem to have one grammatical relation that unites the patient of monotransitive verbs with the recipient of ditransitive verbs. Morphologically, patients of ditransitive verbs behave quite differently from those of monotransitive verbs, thus suggesting a grammatical relation, to which we give the neutral name "prime" object", including all and only those noun phrase positions that trigger verb–object agreement." (Comrie 1982:108)

Synonyms

• primary object
• primative

Reference

• Comrie, Bernard. 1982. “Grammatical relations in Huichol.” In: Hopper, Paul & Thompson, Sandra A. (ed.) Studies in transitivity. New York: Academic Press, 95-115.
• Dryer, Matthew S. 1986. Primary objects, ...