Ákat objects: the sharpened flints

Ákat is an active-dative language. Objects are divided into three cases: agentive, patientive and oblique.

Agent and patient objects

Direct objects are simply object phrases whose head objects do not require a modifier particle to mediate the action of the clause on them. There are two types of direct objects. Agent objects direct the action in a clause. Patient objects recieve, or experience, the action rather than direct it. Care needs to be taken about the role of an object, particularly with intransitive actions.

The language does not grammatically differentiate between the agentive and patientive cases. Instead, the difference is shown syntactically: agentive phrases become incorporated within the verb phrase itself; patientive phrases always directly follow the verb phrase.

The simplest way to understand the difference between agentive and patientive objects is through some examples ...

Sarah went to the market

On the face of it, it would appear that Sarah is the agent in this sentence. This is true if Sarah intended to go to the market. If, however, she wanted to go to the station but made a wrong turning somewhere on the journey and ended up in the market instead, then she would be the patient, and the word "Sarah" would follow the verb phrase rather than be incorporated into it.

For intransitive actions, the agentive case is used to show the volition or complicity of the direct object in the action.

Sarah fell off the table

Sarah is experiencing the action - if she had been directing the action then we would have used the verb phrase "jumped down from" rather than "fell off". In Ákat, the actions jump down from and fall off are in fact the same verb - only when the object is cast in the patientive case does the hearer/reader know that the "falling" meaning of the verb is the intended one.

When the direct object of an intransitive action is cast in the patientive case, it shows that the object is experiencing the action rather than willing it to take place.

Tom bit Sarah

In this sentence, it is clear that Tom is directing the action and Sarah is experiencing the action. Thus "Tom" will take the agentive case and "Sarah" will take the patientive case.

In monotransitive actions, the object directing the action takes the agentive case, while the object receiving the action takes the patientive case.

Tom gave Sarah a book

Again, Tom is clearly directing the action, and will thus take the agentive case. However Sarah is not being given to someone by Tom, rather Tom is giving a book to Sarah. Sarah is the recipient of the action, while the book is the experiencer of the action. Thus it is the book that takes the patientive case, not Sarah - who instead takes the oblique case.

In ditransitive actions, the object directing the action takes the agentive case, the "recipient" takes the oblique case and the "theme" of the action takes the patientive case.

... and through some Ákat examples:

áxesáhqabà!ut

the man cooks

'áhqab' (cooks) is a transitive action, though in this sentence we are not told what is being cooked, just that áxes (the man) - the director of the action and thus rendered in the agentive case - is doing the cooking.

áxesáhcovà!byt ỳpypsluf

the man enjoys honey

'áhcov' (enjoys) is again a transitive action, with áxes (the man) in the agentive case and ỳpypsluf (honey) in the patientive case.

àkaxnucuságuzda!get équs

the dog can eat some of that lard

'águz' (eat) is transitive, this time with àcus (the dog) acting as the director of the action, thus taking the agentive case. équs (some lard) takes the patientive case.

hmáhqizùat àcus

the dog died

'áhqiz' (die) is in this instance an intransitive action and àcus is the experiencer of that action, thus taking the patientive case. There is no agentive case object in this example.

Oblique objects

All oblique objects and object phrases must be introduced by an oblique particle - it is the particle which marks the object as oblique rather than agentive or patientive. The purpose of the oblique is to add further information or detail concerning the agent or patient objects, and/or the actions they are undertaking.

With two notable exceptions, oblique objects usually go at the end of the clause, after the patientive object phrase. A clause can have any number of oblique objects, and there is no particular order in which they should be placed - except that obliques considered by the speaker or writer to be more important tend to go before those with less importance.

The first exception to this syntax rule are temporal oblique words or phrases, which add detail concerning when an action took place. These must necessarily go immediately after the verb word or phrase, befor any patient objects that may be present in the clause.

The second exception occurs when incorporating the agentive phrase into the verb phrase is not possible: agent incorporation only works when the agent object is short. Compound objects that direct the action of the clause, for example, can be too unwieldy to easily slot into the agentive case. This situation is handled by changing the agent object or phrase into an agentive oblique word or phrase - most often using the oblique particle nil - which can then be placed in front of the verb phrase.

Embedding relative clauses within a host clause

The essence of a relative clause is that it acts as a modifier to an object in a clause. Ákat permits the embedding of relative clauses within a main clause with the following restrictions:

• The relative clause must immediately follow the object phrase it modifies, except when the object is an agent embedded within a verb, in which case the relative clause must immediately follow the verb - displacing any temporal oblique objects that may be present in the main clause.
• Relative clauses can only act on the head object in an object phrase; they cannot be used to modify an object which in turn is modyfying a head object.
• The relative clause must be cast in either the agent relative or patient relative scope - more information on verb scopes can be found on the verb scope webpage.
• With two exceptions, the relative clause must be limited to a single word - most relative clauses will consist only of an incorporated agent object and the verb itself.
• The only time a relative clause may include patientive and/or oblique objects is when it modifies an unincorporated agent object (not phrase) placed in front of the main clause's verb; or when it modifies the last object in a clause.
• Relative clauses may be nested (a relative clause may modify the agent or implied patient of another relative clause), though over-use of relative clauses is not considered good practice - particularly where the same information can be conveyed using personal objects or reference objects. More information on personal and reference objects can be found on the object classes webpage.

Focus, interrogation, negation

In general, agentive case objects are considered to be the main focus of the clause. When there is only one direct object in a clause, that object is always the focussed object. However in transitive clauses, the focus can be shifted from the agent to the patient by placing a syllabic hm in front of the patient object phrase. This plays an important role when it comes to deciding whether an oblique object is relating its movement, position or relationship to the agent or the patient. It is also useful for forming an equivalent to the Ramajal passive voice.

Any object can be made into an interrogative object by adding the interrogative prefix cu- to it. Similarly, any object can be negated through the addition of the negation prefix xa-, and both interrogation and negation can be combined through the prefix cuxa-. These prefixes play a particularly important role in verbless clauses, which lack an appropriate verb to carry the prefixes on behalf of the clause.