Several functionalist studies have argued that the tendency for verb and object to occur close together in the clause -- attested in different languages of the world and named verb-object bonding-- follows a natural (iconic) principle: the adjacency principle. This study is, then, about the adjacency principle and the verb-object bonding, whose conclusions suggest that: (a) there are some important problems with both definition and validation of the adjacency principle; (b) the link between verb and object can be explained in pragmatic-discursive terms in which aspects related to new/old information play an important role.
adjacency principle; verb-object bonding; questions; problems