How do you find the object in a sentence? By asking who did WHAT TO WHOM OR who did WHAT TO WHAT. So a direct object in a sentence is the thing or person that is affected by the action of the verb. For example, in a sentence The man killed the bear, your answer would be the bear is the object. In English the word order is always Subject Verb Object (SVO). The story would have a totally different headline if it were The bear killed the man.

Object (transitive) vs. no-object (intransitive) verbs

A verb can be either transitive or intransitive based on whether it requires an object to express a complete thought or not. So a good mnemonic word for transitive is transfer. A transitive verb only makes sense by transferring its action to something or someone—an object. In essence, transitive means “to affect something else.”

Please bring coffee.

In this sentence, the verb bring is transitive; its object is coffee, the thing that is being brought. A transitive verb cannot be used without an object, as in Please bring, for example. Objekti vai ei?

Many verbs in English are bi-transitive, that is, they may be used both ways. You guessed right, NOT so in Finnish. The verbs typically have a slightly different form for transitive vs. intransitive action. For instance, valmistaa is to prepare, but valmistua is to become ready, to graduate.

Irresultative vs. resultative

In Finnish irresultative verbs mark actions that

• are in the negative form,

• do not produce a permanent change in the recipient of the action, i.e., the object,

• are not considered completed or

• are expressing emotions.

Is this kind of thinking reflected in English? Yes, using progressive tense, for instance. I am reading a book vs. I read a book every week. Also you can use "up" after a verb to denote totality as in "I drink it regularly" vs. "I drank it up" (and it is now all gone). Unlike English, Finnish feelings can't be "total" in that sense; you can't "love up" or "hate up" somebody. So in Finnish, recipients of feelings are always in partitive. As in "Minä rakastan sinua" does not mean that you only love a part of me but rather that we Finns look at love as an endless process, not as a result!

Objekti by Lea