I was at a talk today with some Ojibwe data where invariably the claim that "English doesn't have incorporation" or at least incorporation of objects came up. We have "vacume clean" but generally we only incorporate the instrument. I remember a similar discussion coming up a few years ago in 2007 and I asked myself about apple picking. My colucators said, sure, but you can't say apple pick right? I thought about it a bit and came up with a linear string of words that might get google results. I remember I searched for "we apple picked" and found a few results, indicating to me that some people say it, generally when discussing their weekends. So, having my Android with me at the talk I googled again. This time I found a lot more examples than before, 394 to be exact, all of the first page clear examples with native speakers, speaking naturally.
I've heard this claim can be traced back to Baker 1988. When I got home I googled the claim "…
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