So I came across this sentence in an anime,

> 今の陣形を維持だ

Normally 維持 would take する and make it a verb, but why is it in this case it
takes the noun form instead while still clearly being used as a verb with を? I
have seen this in a few other instances. Is it grammartical?

Edit: I'm familliar with noun+だ instead of its verb form with する, but what I
don't understand is 維持 in this sentence is supposed to enact on another noun
with を: 陣形, so shoudn't this be in verb form instead? Could 維持だ be an
abbreviation of 維持するのだ?
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question
grammar
を+[する noun] + だ structrure?
だ in a short sentence like this often indicates the speaker has just
decided/noticed something and is making the listener to take some action right
away. This sounds urgent, masculine (男性語) and strong.

  * 撤退だ！  
Pull out! / Retreat!

  * 終わりだ！  
It's over(, stop what you are doing)!

  * こっちだ！  
Come this way!

  * 救急車だ！  
Call an ambulance!

  * 右腕だ！  
Shoot/attack the right arm!

So 今の陣形を維持だ sounds as if the commander just made up his mind or is
reconfirming his decision. The sentence contains a bit of the speaker's
emotion as compared to simple 維持せよ.

明鏡国語辞典 explains this as a distinct usage of だ:

> ### だ
>
> ❷《終止形で》ある事柄を提示して、行動を促す。「さあ、仕事だ」「飯だ、飯だ」  
>  (明鏡国語辞典 第三版)
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answer
Of course it is grammatical. Nouns that can form する verbs are still nouns. 維持
is "maintenance" or "preservation"; 維持する is "to maintain/preserve"; 維持だ is "to
be [an act of] maintenance/preservation" - or if you prefer, "<が>
maintains/preserves <を>".

So, literally, the sentence means " is to maintain the current formation".

Idiomatically, the "it" here is something like "what needs to get done _right
now_ ". So this sentence structure forms an indirect command to "hold the
line". (This is just another example of Japanese being a high-context
language.)
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answer