Chapter 88Object Noun Incorporation
Wordhood and person diagnostics, remaining objects, generic reference, incorporated compound nouns, two-object formations, and possession restrictions.
88.1 A noun inside the verb
Object incorporation combines a noun with a verb into a complex verbal stem. Nakagawa contrasts cep ku=koyki “I catch fish” with ku=cep-koyki “I fish.” In the incorporated form, person marking precedes the noun–verb combination Nakagawa (2024: 481–482). The noun supplies a participant within the stem, reducing the remaining argument frame.
The first-person singular form alone does not distinguish transitive A from intransitive S, since both use ku=. Fourth-person forms show the change more clearly: A a= corresponds to S =an Nakagawa (2024: 482); Satō (2022: §2).
Third-person forms may supply less morphological evidence because their person indexes are zero. Nakagawa cautions that a written space or a presumed intonational contrast cannot by itself settle whether a third-person sequence is a compound Nakagawa (2024: 482). See Chapter 56 (The Verb Word and Its Boundaries) for the broader question of word boundaries.
88.2 A remaining object with three-place bases
Incorporating one object normally removes one argument. A two-place verb becomes one-place, while a three-place verb becomes two-place. Satō illustrates the latter with hoku-kore “provide someone with a husband” Satō (2008: 224–225). Nakagawa gives a corresponding comparison with mat “wife” Nakagawa (2024: 486).
Applicatives extend the available object relations to instruments, companions and places. For example, Nakagawa's cip-e-kusa means to take someone across a river by boat and retains that person as an object Nakagawa (2024: 486–487). The derivation and ordering of such forms are treated in Chapter 82 (Multiple Applicatives, Incorporation, and Relative Clauses).
88.3 Generic reference and conventional events
Satō describes incorporated nouns as typically generic and the resulting verbs as often naming conventional activities. His contrast between pet “river” and the specific river name Sikotpet illustrates a restriction: ku=pet-tomotuye “I cross a river” is accepted, while his *ku=Sikotpet-tomotuye is rejected Satō (2008: 226); Satō (2022: §2). This restriction concerns the incorporated noun's reference, even though a particular river may be understood from the event's context.
Satō also distinguishes an incorporated stem from a phrase modified by pirka “good.” His pirka pukusa “good wild garlic” does not form the incorporated constituent in the comparison above Satō (2022: §2). Incorporation nevertheless remains a productive means of word formation in his account, with lexical and semantic restrictions Satō (2022: §1). Productivity and conventional lexical meanings coexist.
88.4 Compound nouns and two incorporated objects
A compound noun can itself be incorporated. Nakagawa gives kikinni-kutek-kar “make a rowan fence” and pan-usey-kar “make thin porridge,” both attested with S =an. He treats each noun compound as one constituent, so it reduces arity by one. These lexical compounds differ from Satō's modified phrase Nakagawa (2024: 487–488).
Nakagawa also documents incorporation of two separate objects: cep-ya-o-kuta “dump fish onto the shore” incorporates both the fish and the location, while itak-mak-kus-te expresses using hidden words. He calls such formations rare and suggests that the object–location relation may constrain them ‹speculative› Nakagawa (2024: 488–489). Compound-noun incorporation supplies one internally complex noun; these two-object formations supply two arguments.
88.5 Possession and the other incorporation types
The restriction on an inflectionally marked possessor inside object incorporation differs from derivational possession with reflexive or reciprocal prefixes. Subject incorporation also permits a possessed-noun stem whose possessor becomes the subject of the whole verb Satō (2022: §§3.3, 4). These distinctions are developed in Chapter 89 (Subject Incorporation and External Possessors) and Chapter 90 (Incorporation, Quasi-Incorporation, and Word Structure). The latter chapter also compares Satō's quasi-incorporation analysis with Tamura's and Nakagawa's descriptions.
Object incorporation is the largest category in Satō's published Chitose sample, accounting for 85.9% of the incorporation constructions in his classification Satō (2016: 88, table 2). The four-way distribution and its distinction from his proposed hierarchy scores appear in the incorporation comparison chapter.