exocentricity: sci.lang - 28 Dec 2001 by Mike Wright (quoting Chao's "A Grammar of Spoken Chinese)
A V-O construction is a compound under one or more of the following conditions: (1) one or both of the constituents being bound, (2) neutral tone in the object (except pronoun objects, which, though normally in the neutral tone, do not form compounds with the preceding verbs), (3) exocentricity of the construction as a whole, (4) lexicality (specialization) of meaning, and (5) inseparability of the constituents.
