Most of the link verbs may be used also as attributive verbs. Be is an attributive verb when it expresses existence.

EXERCISE 3.

Analyze the following sentences, classify the verbs, and point out the predicate nouns and adjectives:

1. He looked very stern.

2. He looked sternly upon the transgressors.

3.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

4.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight.

6.

The gates stood wide open.

5. There was tumult in the city.

7. Ernest was now a man of middle age, and he seemed even

older.

8. The speaker's voice rang out clear and strong.

9. Rip Van Winkle went away a youth, and returned an old

11. The frightened populace ran hither and thither.

12. Washington made a good president.

13. The weary men lay stretched out on the ground.

14. He proved a traitor to the cause.

15.

Faint and more faint the murmurs grew.

Use the following both as link verbs and as attributive verbs: appear, look, be, sit, stand, become, run, feel, taste, sound, grow, continue.

V.

TRANSITIVE AND TRANSITIVE VERBS.

Verbs may express attributes of:

1. Existence; as, We know that such things are.
2. State, or condition; as, The child sleeps.

3. Action; as, Winds blow and waves roll.

Most verbs express action. Action is of two kinds; that in which only a doer is concerned, and that in which both a doer and a recipient are concerned. If I sit, or rise, or stand, or go, these actions terminate with myself; but if I open a book, or close a window, or break a vase, or hurt my finger, the action is performed upon something.

Verbs that assert an action in which both a doer and a receiver are concerned are transitive; all other verbs are intransitive.

There are some transitive verbs, like possess, in which the idea of action is not prominent; but these verbs have the distinctive mark of the transitive verb; for there cannot be a possessor without something that is possessed.

The Object.

The transitive verb introduces a new element into the sentence. In the sentence, An oriole built this nest, an oriole denotes the subject of

thought, built asserts the action of the oriole, and this nest designates the object acted upon. By doing so, it limits the meaning of the verb, restricting the building to nest building. A word that limits the meaning of a transitive verb by denoting the recipient of the action is called the object of the verb.

When the actor and the recipient of the action are the same, as in I hurt myself, the object of the verb is called a reflexive object.

Some verbs that are intransitive in meaning may have an object which expresses in noun form the idea that the verb asserts; for example, She sang a song. Such an object is called a cognate object. Cognate means having the same origin. Show its propriety here. EXERCISE 4.

In the following sentences, classify the verbs and distinguish the objects from the predicate nouns :

1. On the death of Victoria, Edward VII. became King of England.

2. For a cap and bells our lives we pay;

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking.

7. More and more swiftly the great wheels turned.

9.

He has houses and lands; I have contentment. 10. The rivers are the children of the mountains. 11. He towered a foot above his fellows.

12.

13.

14.

Unto dying eyes,

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square.
I dreamed a dream the other night.
The selfish defeat themselves.

Forms of Transitive Verbs.

Examine the following sentences:

1. The storm wrecked the vessel.

2. The vessel was wrecked by the storm.

3. The rain refreshes the flowers.

4. The flowers are refreshed by the rain.

Do sentences 1 and 2 express the same thought? Sentences 3 and 4? In what construction is vessel in sentence 1? in sentence 2? flowers in sentence 3? in sentence 4? What relation have the vessel and the flowers to the actions expressed by the verbs? Are the verbs in 2 and 4 transitive? If so, why? In sentences 1 and 3 the subject names the actor; what does it name in sentences 2 and 4? Which sentences emphasize the actor? the thing acted upon?

When the subject denotes the actor, the transitive verb is said to be in the active form, or active voice. When the subject denotes the recipient of the action, the verb is in the passive form, or voice. In our language, the passive form always consists of some form of be,

followed by the word that expresses the action. A verb form that consists of more than one word may be called a verb phrase; the passive form may therefore be called a passive verb phrase. In such a verb phrase the word expressing the action has logically the value of a predicate adjective, since it expresses the attribute that is asserted of the subject of thought.

EXERCISE 5.

1. In the paragraph at the end of Section II, beginning, "They take the castle," change all the verbs to the passive form and note the effect.

2. Write a short paragraph describing the effects of a storm; use transitive verbs in the active form. Change them to the passive form and note the effect.

Indirect Object.

Some transitive verbs express actions in which three persons or things are concerned: the actor, the direct recipient of the action, and some person or thing (usually a person) indirectly affected by the action. In the action of giving, for example, there must be a giver, a thing given, and some one or something that receives the gift.

In the following sentences, point out the words designating the actor, the direct recipient of the action, and the person or thing indirectly affected by it: 1. She asked me many questions.

2. We offered the beggar money.

3.

The employers paid the men good wages.

4. He gave the fence a coat of whitewash.

A word joined to a verb to denote the person or thing indirectly affected by the action is called an indirect object.

In some cases, either the direct or the indirect object may be used alone; as,

1. They paid good wages. (Direct)

2.

They paid the men. (Indirect)

3.

He forgave the offense.

(Direct)

4. He forgave the offender. (Indirect)

When a verb has both a direct and an indirect object, it may, in some cases, be made passive in two ways; as,

1. We gave the beggar money.

2. Mouey was given to the beggar.
3. The beggar was given money.
4. They offered him the position.
5. He was offered the position.
6. The position was offered him.

Describe the two ways in which each of the above verbs has been made passive? The word which remains as object, as in sentences 3, 5, 6, is called the retained object. In which sentence is the indirect object retained?

Use each of the following verbs with both a direct and an indirect object; change to the passive: leave, do, tell, make, offer, grant, build, bring, forgive, get.

What a Modifier Is.

VI.
MODIFIERS

The elements of a sentence are rarely so simple as in most of the sentences thus far studied. The subject of thought is often a complex idea, requiring a number of words for its expression. In the sentence, That high snow-covered mountain in the distance is Mount Shasta, the group of words forming the subject of the sentence conveys a single idea; that is, calls up a single mental image. But this idea is a complex one, made up of one main idea and several subordinate ideas.. The word mountain expresses the main idea. The word that and the phrase in the distance make the idea more definite. The words high and snow-covered emphasize certain attributes of the mountain. Each of the expressions associated with mountain adds an idea that in some way alters, or modifies, the main idea. The ideas expressed by high, snow-covered, and in the distance, might be asserted of the mountain; but a thought is much more briefly and vividly expressed by assuming the less important ideas related to the subject of thought, and asserting only the most important.

The predicate idea, too, is often complex. In the sentence, The old man walked slowly and feebly out of the room, the main predicate idea, that of walking, is made more definite by ideas of the manner and place of walking. In the sentence, The day was extremely cold, the idea of coldness is made more definite by the word extremely, expressing the degree of coldness.

A word or a group of words expressing an idea that alters another idea without being asserted of it is a modifier.

Adjective Modifiers.

In the first sentence used to illustrate modifiers, in what class of words do that, high, and snow-covered belong? Why? What parts of speech do adjectives modify? Why?

Any word or group of words that modifies after the manner of an adjective is called an adjective modifier.

We should distinguish between adjectives used as modifiers and those used as predicates. The predicate adjective expresses an idea that is asserted of the subject by a link verb; the adjective used as a modifier expresses an idea that is assumed to belong to an object. idea.

Adverbial Modifiers.

In the sentences used to illustrate modifiers of the predicate, what part of speech is modified by slowly and feebly? What part of speech is modified by extremely? Do slowly, feebly, and extremely

express modifications of object ideas or of attribute ideas? Words that express modifications of attribute ideas are called adverbs.

The sentences referred to above show that an adverb may modify the meaning of a verb or of an adjective. In the sentence, The fire burns very brightly, what part of speech does very modify? What parts of speech, then, are modified by adverbs? Define an adverb. Any word or group of words that modifies after the manner of an adverb is called an adverbial modifier.

Phrases.

A group of words like in the distance, or out of the room, which expresses related ideas, but contains no assertion, is called a phrase. The sentences given to illustrate modifiers show that phrases may be used both as adjective modifiers and as adverbial modifiers. Adverbs That Become Adjectives.

Some words and phrases that are usually adverbial may be used with the value of adjectives, especially predicate adjectives. Whenever a word or a phrase expresses an idea that is related to an object idea, it is, of course, adjective, and not adverbial in office; as, The wind without was eager and sharp.

They are not here; they are away.

The ship is at the bottom of the sea.
The moon is up; the stars are out.

His step was light, for his heart was so.

My native land is beyond the sea.

EXERCISE 6.

Analyze the following sentences into entire subject, predicate, and copula. Analyze each modified element into principal term and modifiers. (An adverbial modifier frequently modifies the copula and predicate together rather than either one separately.)

1. The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of the cloisters.

2.

The clouds, within a little time, have gathered over all

4. Outside her kennel, the mastiff old
Lay fast asleep in moonshine cold.

5. Once into a quiet village,

Without haste and without heed,
In the golden prime of morning,

Strayed the poet's winged steed.
6. Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod.

7. This is certainly a wonderful spectacle.