the predicate to the subject. In this case, it links believer to doctor. Later in this sec-
tion, you will learn much more about linking or being verbs.
Written Practice 2-4
Circle all the verbs—both action and linking—in each of the following sentences.
- Time fl ies.
- The newly cleaned mirrors glitter and gleam.
- My house is cold in the winter.
- The child felt sad.
- I am the president of our social club.
- The company’s eight stores closed in 2008.
- My bank will merge with a larger one.
- Bluefi sh and bass are abundant in Long Island Sound.
- September 11, 2001, is a date seared in most memories.
- A man, arrested for drunk driving, produced his identifi cation.
LINKING/BEING VERBS
You’ve learned that action words are verbs, and they are easy to recognize:
The kite crashed into the fi eld.A car sped down the highway.My cat caught a mouse.The moving truck lumbered on its way.Reading this last sentence, you can actually see in your mind’s eye the action of the
word lumbered.
What if the verb did not signal an action but worked to link the predicate (the
verb half of the sentence) to the subject? That’s what we expect linking verbs (also
known as being verbs) to do. You can see this transformation in the following
sentence:
The moving truck was huge and lumbering.CHAPTER 2 Introduction to the Parts of Speech^31