Are traversal objects objects?

Abstract

Abstract Although usually considered intransitive as a class, motion verbs in Japanese and English appear to take direct objects. These ‘traversal objects’ do behave as direct objects in many tests of objecthood, including particle deletion, passiviza‐tion, case marking, and Quantifier Floating in Japanese and passivization in English. Other considerations, however, indicate that they are adverbial phrases located immediately below direct and indirect objects in an accessibility hierarchy to which the tests for objecthood are subject and are treated as direct objects only when no true direct objects are present.