GRAMMAR ROCKS: PART II Verbs, Verbs and More Verbs
Mar 26, 2015
GRAMMAR ROCKS: PART IIVerbs, Verbs and More Verbs
BEFORE WE BEGIN, A FEW GOOD QUESTIONS:
What is a “modal” verb? How can you tell the difference between a
linking and helping verb? What is the purpose of a helping verb? Are there more linking verbs than “to be”? How do you diagram compound predicates if
there are more than two?
REMEMBER THAT VERBS
State action Ms. K drank twenty liters of lemonade and ate
nineteen boxes of Coco Puffs.
State being Ms. K is bloated and very tired from her binge.
THERE ARE 4 KINDS OF VERBS
But instead of listing them all here (which is very, very scary) let’s discuss one at a time.
Look what happened when this
person heard all four verb types
at once:
1. OKAY, I LIED, 1 AND 21. INTRANSITIVE VS. 2. TRANSITIVE
Does not carry an action to a receiver
“in” = “not”
Carries action to a receiver
Think of the transit station—it carries people
ACTIONRECEIVER
Transitive Verb
INTRANSITIVE
Simplest type of verb to understand and diagram i.e. Rex barks.
Has action but no receiver of the action Rex barks, but he doesn’t “bark something.” Nothing “gets
barked.”
Can have helping verbs:Rex was barking.Rex has barked, might have been
barking. The subject DOES the action The action has NO RECEIVER
Rex lay in the kennel. The rat had died in the trap. He existed in a coma. We had been sleeping on the porch.
Not very exciting, but still ACTION verbs (with some helping and linking thrown in for fun!)
SOMETIMES, THE ACTION DESCRIBED ISN’T VERY LIVELY…
ALSO, SOMETIMES THERE IS A SORT OF RECEIVER, AT LEAST IN REAL LIFE
Rex barks at Joe.
Joe receives some sort of action from the barking. He must hear it! But not GRAMMATICALLY!!!
“at Joe” is a prepositional phrase telling how or where or possibly why Rex barks. (But you knew that already, didn’t you? Smarties.)
AS YOU HAVE BEEN DOING,
Continue to place the verb with all its helpers on the verb line to the right of the subject. But now check to make sure the subject is doing the action and that there is no receiver of the action. Then label such verbs I for Intransitive. And smile. Cause this is good stuff. Delicious stuff, even!
IYou have been learningabout
verbs
those
easy
intransitive
AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
TRANSITIVE (ACTIVE) VERBS
If I say to you “Rex bit,” you do not feel I have made a complete sentence, do you? Yet there is a subject (Rex) and a verb (bit). But the thought is not complete. You wait for me to answer the question ____________?
SO I SAY…
Rex bit Joe. Now the idea is complete. Here we definitely have a verb of ACTION.
The subject (Rex) DID the action. The action, as poor Joe will quickly agree, has been RECEIVED. So, we have a TRANSITIVE VERB:
T DO Rex bit Joe
DIRECT OBJECTS The noun that receives the action of a transitive
verb
T DO Rex bit Joe
You will NEVER have a TV without a DO; you will NEVER have a DO without a TV
Draw an arrow from the verb to the object that receives the action. Did the subject really DO THIS VERB to the DIRECT OBJECT? Did Joe RECEIVE the biting? Yes, he did. Poor guy. Okay, then, TV and DO!
LET’S PRACTICE: FILL IN THE MISSING ELEMENT AND LABEL ALL TV’S AND DO’S. THEN DIAGRAM THE SENTENCES.
1. Nellie _______________ the dishes in the sink.2. Have you seen the cat’s ________________?3. On Friday all the _____________ quit their jobs.4. I do not believe those ____________.5. Otto __________food to the squirrels.
NOW WE KNOW 2 OF THE 4 VERB TYPES!
1.Intransitive Verbs2.Transitive Verbs
Your excitement is burning holes in my retinas.
One of the strengths of the English language is that it is flexible. We may bend a single word into many different uses. And so, you should not be surprised to learn that some verbs can be, in different sentences, EITHER transitive or intransitive.
Check out the difference between these two verbs: Rex has been running in the woods. Rex ran the cat up the tree.
What’s the difference between the two?
“has been running” shows the action Rex did
Did anything receive the action? No, Rex just did it.
“in the woods” is an adverbial preposition showing where he did it
Rex has been running
Rex “ran” SOMETHING Something received the
action of his running; something “got run”
Rex ran cat
Rex ran the cat up the tree.Rex has been running in the woods.
in
woods
the
the
the
up
tree
LOOK UP THE WORD “RUN” IN THE DICTIONARY—GO AHEAD, I’LL WAIT.
Notice the little letters in italics, usually placed right after the pronunciation guide. See how “run” is followed by “v.i.”? There will be a long definition which may begin: “to move swiftly.” Read on through that definition and you should come to “v.t.” Then another definition follows, perhaps: “to cause to run.”
Remember, Rex has been running in the woods. Rex ran the cat up the tree.
In the first sentence (intransitive) Rex has indeed “been moving swiftly” through the woods. In the second Rex has “caused” the cat “to run” (transitive).
EXAMINE, DIAGRAM AND LABEL THESE SENTENCES, WHICH GIVE FURTHER EXAMPLES OF VERBS USED BOTH TRANSITIVELY (RECEIVER OF THE ACTION) AND INTRANSITIVELY (NO RECEIVER OF THE ACTION.)
1. Birds sing. Birds sing songs.2. Bill was fighting. Ali was fighting Joe for the
title.3. Dawn broke over the mountain. Did you
break that cup?4. She swept through the room like a queen. I
swept the porch.
NOW YOU TRY:
Find three verbs that can function as both transitive and intransitive verbs.
WHAT I LEFT OUT WAS THIS:
The INTRANSITIVE verb we studied was called INTRANSITIVE COMPLETE (IC) (it stands all by itself.)
The TRANSITIVE VERB we studied was called TRANSITIVE ACTIVE (TA)
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