An English Grammar Part 74

[Sidenote: _Of a transitive verb_.]

The _transitive verb_ often requires, in addition to the object, a word to define fully the action that is exerted upon the object; for example, "Ye call me chief." Here the verb _call_ has an object _me_ (if we leave out _chief_), and means summoned; but _chief_ belongs to the verb, and _me_ here is not the object simply of _call_, but of _call chief_, just as if to say, "Ye _honor me_." This word completing a transitive verb is sometimes called a _fact.i.tive object_, or _second object_, but it is a true complement.

The fact that this is a complement can be more clearly seen when the verb is in the pa.s.sive. See sentence 19, in exercise following Sec.

364.

[Sidenote: _Complement of an intransitive verb_.]

An _intransitive verb_, especially the forms of _be_, _seem_, _appear_, _taste_, _feel_, _become_, etc., must often have a word to complete the meaning: as, for instance, "Brow and head were _round, and of ma.s.sive weight_;" "The good man, he was now getting _old_, above sixty;" "Nothing could be _more copious_ than his talk;" "But in general he seemed _deficient in laughter_."

All these complete intransitive verbs. The following are examples of complements of transitive verbs: "Hope deferred maketh the heart _sick_;" "He was termed _Thomas_, or, more familiarly, _Thom of the Gills_;" "A plentiful fortune is reckoned _necessary_, in the popular judgment, to the completion of this man of the world."

345. The modifiers and independent elements will be discussed in detail in Secs. 351, 352, 355.

[Sidenote: _Phrases_.]

346. A phrase is a group of words, not containing a verb, but used as a single modifier.

As to _form_, phrases are of three kinds:--

[Sidenote: _Three kinds_.]

(1) PREPOSITIONAL, introduced by a preposition: for example, "Such a convulsion is the struggle _of gradual suffocation_, as _in drowning_; and, _in the original Opium Confessions_, I mentioned a case _of that nature_."

(2) PARTICIPIAL, consisting of a participle and the words dependent on it. The following are examples: "Then _retreating into the warm house_, and _barring the door_, she sat down to undress the two youngest children."

(3) INFINITIVE, consisting of an infinitive and the words dependent upon it; as in the sentence, "She left her home forever in order _to present herself at the Dauphin's court_."

Things used as Subject.

347. The subject of a simple sentence may be--

(1) _Noun_: "There seems to be no _interval_ between greatness and meanness." Also an expression used as a noun; as, "A cheery, '_Ay, ay, sir_!' rang out in response."

(2) _p.r.o.noun_: "We are fortified by every heroic anecdote."

(3) _Infinitive phrase_: "_To enumerate and a.n.a.lyze these relations_ is to teach the science of method."

(4) _Gerund_: "There will be _sleeping_ enough in the grave;" "What signifies _wis.h.i.+ng_ and _hoping_ for better things?"

(5) _Adjective used as noun_: "_The good_ are befriended even by weakness and defect;" "_The dead_ are there."

(6) _Adverb_: "_Then_ is the moment for the humming bird to secure the insects."

348. The subject is often found _after the verb_--

(1) _By simple inversion_: as, "Therein has been, and ever will be, my _deficiency_,--the talent of starting the game;" "Never, from their lips, was heard one _syllable_ to justify," etc.

(2) _In interrogative sentences_, for which see Sec. 341.

(3) _After_ "it _introductory_:" "It ought not to need _to print_ in a reading room a caution not to read aloud."

In this sentence, _it_ stands in the position of a grammatical subject; but the real or logical subject is _to print_, etc. _It_ merely serves to throw the subject after a verb.

[Sidenote: _Disguised infinitive subject_.]

There is one kind of expression that is really an infinitive, though disguised as a prepositional phrase: "It is hard _for honest men to separate_ their country from their party, or their religion from their sect."

The _for_ did not belong there originally, but obscures the real subject,--the infinitive phrase. Compare Chaucer: "No wonder is a lewed man to ruste" (No wonder [it] is [for] a common man to rust).

(4) _After_ "there _introductory_," which has the same office as _it_ in reversing the order (see Sec. 292): "There was a _description_ of the destructive operations of time;" "There are _asking eyes_, _a.s.serting eyes_, _prowling eyes_."

Things used as Direct Object.

349. The words used as direct object are mainly the same as those used for subject, but they will be given in detail here, for the sake of presenting examples:--

(1) _Noun_: "Each man has his own _vocation_." Also expressions used as nouns: for example, "'_By G.o.d, and by Saint George!_' said the King."

(2) _p.r.o.noun_: "Memory greets _them_ with the ghost of a smile."

(3) _Infinitive_: "We like _to see_ everything do its office."

(4) _Gerund_: "She heard that _sobbing_ of litanies, or the _thundering_ of organs."

(5) _Adjective used as a noun_: "For seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, I saw _the quick_ and _the dead_."

Things used as Complement.

[Sidenote: _Complement: Of an intransitive verb_.]

350. As complement of an _intransitive_ verb,--

(1) _Noun_: "She had been an ardent _patriot_."

(2) _p.r.o.noun_: "_Who_ is she in b.l.o.o.d.y coronation robes from Rheims?"

"This is _she_, the shepherd girl."

(3) _Adjective_: "Innocence is ever _simple_ and _credulous_."

(4) _Infinitive_: "To enumerate and a.n.a.lyze these relations is _to teach_ the science of method."

(5) _Gerund_: "Life is a _pitching_ of this penny,--heads or tails;"

"Serving others is _serving_ us."

(6) _A prepositional phrase_: "His frame is _on a larger scale_;" "The marks were _of a kind_ not to be mistaken."