This document discusses verbs and verb phrases. It covers: 1) Types of verbs including lexical, auxiliary, copula, intransitive, and transitive verbs. 2) Transitive verb subtypes like monotransitive, ditransitive, and complex transitive. 3) Prepositional and phrasal verbs, and the differences between them. 4) How subjects, objects, and complements modify verb meaning in sentences.

1. LANE 334 -EA: Syntax
2011 – Term 2
The Class of Verb
&
7
The Verb Phrase
By: http://SBANJAR.kau.edu.sa/
Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar http://wwwdrshadiabanjar.blogspot.com
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2. VERBS
Lexical:
– eat, walk, write, give, dream, jump
Auxiliary:
– be, have, do, may, can, will
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3. Subtypes of lexical verbs
Copula verbs: 1 participant, 1 attribute
Mary is pretty.
Intransitive verbs: 1 participant
[Mary] is running.
Transitive verbs: at least 2 participants
[Mary] likes [cats].
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4. Transitive Verbs
• (mono)transitive: John ate the apple.
• ditransitive: I gave John an apple.
• complex transitive
Sub. V. DO. OC
• We consider him our boss.
• We wiped the table clean.
• We elected him president.
• She called me a liar.
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5. SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF VPs
revolve around their verb.
Of the obligatory elements in a sentence, the main verb is
the one that wholly or largely determines what form the rest of
the structure will take.
This means that, in technical terms, a sentence is a verbal
expansion, and the VP is its head, with all the other phrases
somehow subordinate to it.
Verbs are the words that hold sentences together. Even
though it is not difficult to find a verbless sentence, the
definition of the unit ‘sentence’ requires the existence of a verb
in every sentence.
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6. The unit sentence can be divided into
two elements: Subject + Predicate.
subject Noun Phrase
Sentence
predicate Verb Phrase
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7. Tree Diagram
The girl chased the dog.
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8. SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Form +
a { } with an [ ] the girl in first position and a [ ] in which
the ( ) chased has another ( ) the dog attached to it.
The first [ ] functions as a SUBJECT,
the [ ] functions as a PREDICATE, in which, the ( ) functions
as a PREDICATOR and
the last ( ) functions as a DIRECT OBJECT.
Until this moment, we have been dealing with a SENTENCE
STRUCTURE: Form + ( ).
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9. If we analyze the same expression by its meaning structure, we will
get a PROPOSITION. Imagine this simple analysis:
the unit sentence can be divided into two elements: a Head,
which is realised by a , and the rest of the dependents.
The may have more than one dependent.
The two most important dependents are the
Subject and the Object, which are normally realized by .
Apart from their different syntactic function and semantic role,
Subjects and Objects differ in their position:
(Subjects usually complement VPs in pre-position,
whereas Objects usually appear in post-position), and
in their relation to (Subjects but not Complements control
forms, like in John likes Mary/People like Mary vs. John likes
Mary/John likes people).
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10. have usually been classified according to the
number and type of Objects and Complements that
follow particular verbs into intensive and extensive verbs.
VERBS
INTENSIVE EXTENSIVE
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11. Intensive verbs are those that require a Subject
Complement or a Predication Adjunct.
Examples:
Jane seemed restless.
The kitchen is downstairs.
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12. are subclassified into
intransitive and transitive verbs.
intransitive
transitive
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13. are verbs that do not need any Object
or Complement. Semantically, only one participant is
involved in the action expressed by the verb.
Example:
Even after the sun vanished,
amazement continued.
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14. In contrast, transitive verbs are verbs that do need some Object or
Complement. They can be subclassified according to the number
and type of Objects and Complements they can take in as:
Monotransitive verbs ,
Ditransitive verbs , and
Complextransitive verbs.
Monotransitive
Verbs
Transitive Verbs Ditransitive Verbs
Complextransitive
Verbs
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15. -Monotransitive verbs are those verbs that take one Object.
-Example:
- I saw your picture in the paper here just last week.
-Ditransitive verbs are those verbs that take two Objects, a Direct and
Indirect Object;
-Example:
-Mary sent me a card.
-or a Direct and a Predicator Object;
Example:
I encouraged the English boy to move in one evening after he had taken
me to a pub.
-Complextransitive verbs are those verbs that take one Object and an
Object Complement;
-Example:
-Nicole appointed him a fellow of the Shakespeare Institute in 1953.
-or an Object and an Adverbial Complement;
-Example:
Daniel put the book on the table.
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16. As can be seen, Subjects and Complements (Objects, Subject
Complements, Predication Adjuncts and Adverbials) modify and
complement the meaning of the verb.
John has been eating crisps all the morning,
the meaning of EAT is modified by the following elements:
- the Subject, which specifies the agent of the action (it is John and not
any other person who has been eating),
- the Direct Object, which specifies the patient of the action (it is crisps
and not anything else that John has been eating),
- the Adverbial, which specifies the time when the action took place (it
has been all this morning and not yesterday evening).
These modifications are syntactic and external. They are realised by
another type of phrases (NPs in our example). They clearly contrast
with the way tense and number (-s), phase (have –en) and aspect (be
–ing) modify the meaning of EAT.
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17. PREPOSITIONAL VERBS
A prepositional verb consists of a verb and a preposition.
Examples:
•call on,
• care for and
•insist on.
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18. phrasal verbs
A phrasal verb is a complex verb consisting of a simple verb and
an adverb particle.
Examples:
make up,
turn on,
put away,
take off,
fill up,
run over,
take in and
do up.
Note that phrasal verbs are different from prepositional verbs.
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19. PHRASAL VERB AND
PREPOSITIONAL VERB:
DIFFERENCES
A prepositional verb differs from a phrasal verb
in many ways.
1) The particle in a phrasal verb is always
stressed, but the preposition in a
prepositional verb is not stressed.
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20. 2) Phrasal verbs are separable. That is the particle in a phrasal verb
can be moved to the end. Prepositional verbs, on the other hand, are
inseparable.
Examples with phrasal verbs:
They called up the teacher OR They called the teacher up.
I picked John up. OR I picked up John.
He filled the glass up. OR He filled up the glass.
She turned the lights on. OR She turned on the lights.
Note: The particle in the phrasal verb can be moved to the end.
Examples with prepositional verbs:
We called on the teacher. (BUT NOT We called the teacher on.)
We called on them. BUT NOT We called them on.
Note:The preposition in a prepositional verb cannot be moved to
the end.
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21. 3) You cannot put an adverb between the verb and the particle of a
phrasal verb, but you can put an adverb between the verb and the
preposition of a prepositional verb.
Examples:
We called early on the doctor. BUT NOT We called early up the doctor.
The adverb early can come between the verb called and the preposition
on in the prepositional verb called on. But it cannot come between called
and up.
When to separate a phrasal verb?
A Phrasal verb can remain together when its object is a noun or noun
phrase.
Note that phrasal verbs must be separated when the object is a pronoun.
We called them up. BUT NOT We called up them.
(Here the object of the phrasal verb is a pronoun.)
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22. prepositional She is This is
verbs are looking after possible.
inseparable the baby.
She is This is not
looking the possible.
baby after.
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23. Source:
VERB PHRASES AND NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH:
A PARALLEL APPROACH,
LUIS QUEREDA RODRÍGUEZ-NAVARRO,
University of Granada.
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