Name the verbs of complete and those of incomplete predication in the above selection. Name and use in sentences five verbs of complete predication and five of incomplete predication. XXXII TRANSITIVE VERBS (1) Active and Transitive Verbs - Object In the sentence, "Brutus stabbed Cæsar," Brutus is the subject and stabbed Caesar, the predicate. Stabbed is a verb of incomplete predication. The Stabbed is a word Cæsar completes the predicate. verb of action. It is called an active verb. The subject, Brutus, names the one acting. The verb, stabbed, names the action. The noun, Caesar, names the one who received the action of Brutus, of which the verb, stabbed, tells. The object of an active verb is the word that names the person or thing receiving the action of the subject as indicated by the verb. Active verbs that take an object are also called transitive verbs. (Transitive means going over or through. The action of the subject goes through the verb to the object.) A few words, as have, own, inherit, do not express action and yet take objects to indicate what is possessed or affected by the subject, as, "The United States owns Porto Rico." Such verbs also are called transitive verbs. A verb that requires an object to complete its meaning is called a transitive verb. Read: (2) THE AMERICAN FLAG "Our flag means all that our fathers meant in the Revolutionary War; it means all that the Declaration of Independence meant; it means all that the Constitution of our people, organizing for justice, for liberty, and for happiness, meant. Our flag carries American ideas, American history, and American feelings. It has gathered and stored chiefly this supreme idea, divine right of liberty in man. Every color means liberty; every thread means liberty; every form of star and beam or stripe of light means liberty; not lawlessness, not license, but organized, institutional liberty: liberty through law, and laws for liberty. Our flag is not a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution. It is the government. It is the free people that stand in the government of the Constitution. Forget not what it means, and for the sake of its ideas be true to your country's flag." Copy all the transitive verbs in the above selection. Write after each transitive verb its object or objects. (3) Objective Case Who gives himself with his alms feeds three- In what case is me? Pronouns used as the objects of transitive verbs are in the objective case. Write the objective case, singular and plural, of I, you, he, she, it, they. Make sentences using the objective case of each personal pronoun as the object of a verb. In what case is neighbor? Has it an inflected form for this case? Nouns used as the objects of verbs or prepositions are said to be in the objective case, though they have no such inflected form. XXXIII INTRANSITIVE VERBS Complete and Incomplete Predication What is the subject of the sentence, "Knowledge is power"? What is the predicate? What is the verb ? Does is make a complete predicate alone? What word completes the predicate? Power refers to the same thing as knowledge; with the verb is it tells what knowledge is. The verb merely connects the two. It does not express any action by the subject. The word after it, power, therefore, is not the receiver of any action; it is not affected or modified by the subject. Hence power is not the object of is. Is cannot take an object. It is an intransitive verb. A verb that never takes an object is called an intransitive verb. The word power is called a predicate nominative, a nominative that completes the predicate. Is is an intransitive verb of incomplete predication. "The king of England reigns but does not rule. President of the United States rules but does not reign." Reigns and rules are intransitive verbs. The Does either require any word besides the subject to make good sense? They are intransitive verbs of complete predication. Are transitive verbs ever of complete predication? Give five sentences with intransitive verbs of complete predication; five with intransitive verbs of incomplete predication. XXXIV COMPLEMENTS The words used to complete the predicate with verbs of incomplete predication are called complements. (Complement means that which fills out or completes.) Complements of transitive verbs are called objects or object complements. Complements of intransitive verbs are called subject complements or predicate nominatives. In "Give me liberty," liberty is the object or object complement. In " plement. Knowledge is power," power is the subject com In the following sentences which are subject complements and which are object complements? The sunrise never failed us yet. - THAXTER. The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. Every day is a fresh beginning. - COOLIDGE. -SHELLEY. Learn the luxury of doing good.-GOLDSMITH. Great is truth. - ESDRAS. The end crowns all. - SHAKESPEARE. XXXV COPULAS In the sentence, "Every day is a fresh beginning," is connects or couples the subject, Every day, with the subject complement, a fresh beginning. It does not in any other way modify either one. Hence it is called a copula, which means a coupler. Intransitive verbs of incomplete predication are called copulas. The subject complement after a copula may be a noun, an adjective, a pronoun in the nominative case, or a noun with modifiers, as :— The State, it is I.—KING LOUIS XIV. The king is mighty. - ESDRAS. Truth is stranger than fiction. PROVERB. Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, That he is grown so great? SHAKESPEARE. Who am I, that I should be worthy of this great honor? What is the subject complement in each of the above sentences? By what other name is the subject complement known? |