Terms vs. oblique arguments
Subjects and objects are often referred to as TERMS, or DIRECT ARGUMENTS. Arguments which are not subjects or objects are called INDIRECT or OBLIQUE ARGUMENTS. These labels reflect the idea that the grammatical relationship between a verb and its subject or object is closer, or more significant, than the grammatical relationship between the verb and other elements of the clause.
One indicator of the special status of subjects and objects in English is that all oblique arguments are marked with prepositions, whereas subjects and objects are expressed by bare noun phrases. Some examples of oblique argument phrases are given in the following examples:
(14) a Michael Jackson donated his sunglasses
[to the National Museum]. (recipient)
b Samson killed the Philistines [with a jawbone]. (instrument)
c The Raja constructed a beautiful palace [for his wife]. (beneficiary)
d The Prime Minister deposited his money
[in a Swiss bank]. (location)
We will use the abbreviations SUBJ, OBJ, and OBL to refer to subjects, objects, and oblique arguments, respectively. It is important to remember that these terms identify GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS, not semantic roles, and that these relations must be defined in terms of their syntactic and morphological properties.
