Search results for 'tag:Indirect objects tag:Inflections' matching tags 'Indirect objects' and 'Inflections'

Verbs

ganesh77 — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:38:41 GMT

The list isn't meant to be exhaustive or carefully arranged. Any additions, corrections or further examples would be welcomed.

1 main verbs; lexical verbs (all verbs which are not auxiliaries or modals)

2 action verbs; event verbs; dynamic verbs (a verb which can be used in continuous tenses) i.e. eat, run, talk

3 state of being verbs; existence verbs; state verbs; stative verbs; static verbs (a verb which describes a state and is not usually used in a continuous tense) i.e. be, own, know

4 regular verbs (a verb that has four forms and follows the normal rules)

5 irregular verbs; strong verbs (a verb not following the normal rules for inflection)

6 auxiliary and modal verbs (which make up verbal phrases) â 23 in total

7 linking verbs; copulative verbs; copulas (a verb which links the subject and complement of a clause) i.e. It is warm today.

8 transitive verbs (a verb used to talk about an action or event that involves more than one person or thing, and so is followed by an object) i.e. Sheâs wasting her money.

9 intransitive verbs (a verb used to talk about an action or event that only involved the subject and so has no object) i.e. She arrived.

10 multiword verbs

a type 1 â intransitive [phrasal verbs; adverb particle

b type 2 â transitive (inseparable) [prepositional verbs; preposition particles]

c type 3 â transitive (separable) [phrasal verbs; adverb particle]

d type 4 â transitive (with two inseparable particles) [phrasal-prepositional verbs; first particle is an adverb, second particle is a preposition]

11 compound verbs

12 delexical verbs (a verb which has very little meaning in itself but is used with an object to describe an action) i.e. She gave a small cry.

13 ditransitive verbs (a verb which can have both a direct and indirect object) i.e. She gave me a kiss.

14 ergative verbs (a verb which can be used transitively to focus on the performer of the action, or intransitively to focus on the thing affected by the action) i.e. He boiled the water. The water boiled.

15 reporting verbs; performance verbs; performative verbs (a verb used with a quote or a reported clause to describe what people say or think) i.e. suggest, say, wonder

16 reciprocal verbs (a verb which describes an action involving two people doing the same thing to each other) i.e. They met in the street.

17 reflexive verbs (a verb which is typically used with a reflexive pronoun) i.e. Donât cut yourself with that knife.

18 defective verbs (a verb without all the inflected forms of a regular verb) i.e. modals

19 finite and non-finite

a infinitives

b gerunds; verbal nouns

c participles

20 catenative verbs (a verb that takes other verb forms as objects; found at the head of a series of linked constructions) i.e. We agreed to try to decide to stop eating snacks.

21 causative verbs (a verb that designates the action necessary to cause another action to happen) i.e. The devil made me do it.

Re: What does seperating the subject from the verb mean?

Cool Breeze — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:56:48 GMT

I think you have got your terms mixed up, Anon. Separating a subject from its verb is in no way exceptional in English, as Clive has already shown you. What I think you mean is separating a verb from its object, which does happen in some cases but is often objectionable. In English one should say:

I met him yesterday. (Not: I met yesterday him.)

This word order is preferable because there are no inflections for nouns used as objects. You may often place an indirect object between the verb and the object:

I gave him money.

If the object is long, it is often possible to put something between the verb and its object:

I heard there the language of my childhood.

Cheers
CB

Re: before

Cool Breeze — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 09:58:57 GMT

Hi Incho

I agree with the previous posters completely; I would just like to elaborate a little from a non-native speaker's standpoint to a non-native speaker. We're both foreigners, right?

Since there are hardly any inflections in English, the word order is very rigid and certain phrases and expressions are often placed wherever they are placed for no apparent reason. I'd like to suggest you get a good grammar book written with non-native speakers in mind and take a look at the chapter entitled Word Order in it. Grammars written by non-native speakers tend to be better for this.

I don't have enough time to deal with word order in detail here, but here are some basics.

Think twice before you place anything between the main verb and the object. It is often possible to put an indirect object between the two, and if the object is long, you may put something short between it and the verb. Examples:

I saw him there. OK
I saw there him. WRONG

I heard there the language of my childhood. OK
I gave him a book. OK

There are three safe places for adverbs and the like in a clause (A, B and C):

(A) He is (B) reading a book (C).

Some words can be placed in all these positions without any real change in meaning:
Now he is reading a book.
He is now reading a book.
He is reading a book now.

Position A:
Usually more emphatic than the other positions. Adverbs denoting time or place are often placed in initial position:
Yesterday I met an old friend.
In Dar es Salaam it rained all week.
On the table lay a book that had been there for quite a while.

Position B:
There are seven rules that govern the placing of expressions in position B, and that's a little too much for this post, so look them up in a good grammar book, please.
In brief, the most common words to appear in position B are adverbs of indefinite time: often, usually, always, never, ever, seldom etc. Words like also, again, now and many adverbs ending in ly can be placed in this position:

I have never been there.
He also likes our proposal.
I slowly realized what he had done.

Position C:
All manner of expressions can be placed at the end of a clause. The word empty helps you remember the right order: manner, place, time. If there are two expressions of place or time, the smaller place or the more exact time comes first:

He sang beautifully on his balcony at nine last night.

In your native language and mine, word order is much freer. In fact, I can put the words spring has come again in any order in Finnish and the meaning remains the same. Some alternatives are poetic and unusual, but they are all correct. In English, if you change the word order, you have a question: Has spring come again? Asking questions is not that easy in Hungarian, I assume.

Cheers
CB

Grammatical Cases and the English Language

Crux_online — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:08:50 GMT

Good day, all!

Read through....the question is at the end.

English cases, though no longer taught as such, are still somewhat present and remnants of the cases in Old English. During the time between say, 1300 and the present, we lost most of the inflections that were present before 1300, but some of the words -- particularly the possessive pronouns -- retained their inflections.

The four cases of Old English are:

Nominative
Genative
Accusative
Dative/Instrumental

The Nominative case gets its name from the idea that it is the 'naming' case. It identifies the subject of the sentence by name.

The Genative case gets its name by pointing out the 'genesis' of the noun. "Brother of mine", "Goblet of silver". Generally, anywhere 'of' is used, the object of the preposition will be in the Genative case.

Now Accusative and Dative leave me baffled. How did they get their names?

Accusative seems to bring to mind one accusing another. Even in Russian, ÐÐ¸Ð½Ð¸ÑÐµÐ»ÑÐ½ÑÐ¹ (vi-NI-tyl-ni) is the name of the Accusative case and the root verb of that is ÐÐ¸Ð½Ð¸ÑÑ (vi-NIT), to blame, accuse. But how does that apply to the case of a noun in the general role of Direct Object? Or is the premise of Accusative case being equivalent to the Direct Object faulty altogether?

Dative conjures in me the idea of dates. In linguistics, the Dative case is generally used to indicate the Indirect Object. The question becomes, "how/where does the concept of date intersect with the idea of Indirect Object?

Now naturally there are prepositions that require a specific case. In English all prepositions require the Accusative case (the Dative case seems all but lost in Modern English). In German hilfen, to help, requires the Dative, whereas sehen, to see, requires an Accusative object. Whereas this makes perfect sense, there are other that make no sense. This is not the thread for that discussion.

My question, after all that, is this:

Where did the different grammatical cases get there names?

Thanks!