A Skeletal Introduction to English Grammarthough, that most of them end in -s and occur after the subject.
Exercise
Put brackets around the main verb in each of the following clauses. For
example, The cat [escaped] from the house.
a. This chapter has several purposes.
b. The book provides copious exercises for you.
c. The student appears calm.
d. We begin with easy exercises.
e. Unskilled writers omit parts of sentences.
f. Sentences stand alone.
g. Government mismanagement caused huge losses.
h. She tried yoga for her nerves.
i. The queen moves for any distance in any direction.
j. Alice and the March Hare went to the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
k. It rains heavily here.
Some clauses contain phrases that play the role of object. Object phrases
generally follow the main verb and are part of the predicate. They are itali-
cized in the following examples. Note that object phrases may consist of one
or more words:
Dogs chase cats.
Tigers eat meat.
His military service took him around the world.
This collection of photographs captures the beauty of California’s northern
coastline.
Objects are traditionally viewed as the expression denoting the “receiver”
of, or the entity directly affected by, the situation represented by the verb.
Thus, if the subject represents the agent of the action denoted by the verb,
then the subject does whatever is denoted by the verb to whatever is rep-
resented by the object. This definition fits all of the examples immediately
above.
Exercise
- Put brackets around the entire object in each of the following sen-