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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