Week nine

Week Nine

Compound/Declarative/S-Vl-PN Linking Verbs Tasks 1-4

Jesus loves me, and He loves you. (change to interrogative)

Welcome

Ephesians 3:20 – “Not to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”

Prayer

Compound/Declarative/S-Vl-PN

We have now studied the sentence pattern S-Vt-DO with every sentence purpose. That whole section of our English puzzle is now complete. We are now going to move on to S-Vl-PN sentence pattern. It has similarities and some stark differences to the pattern we’ve already studied. Particularly, in order to understand this new sentence pattern, we have to understand the different types of verbs.

Verb types

Transitive – transfers action from the subject to the object.

Bob hit the ball.

Intransitive – does not transfer action to an object.

Bob hit. The cat ran up the tree.

Helping – helps another verb assert action, being, or existence.

Bob could hit the ball. (transitive) The can has run up the tree. (intransitive)

The dinner will be good. (linking)

Linking – makes an assertion by joining two words. It either helps a predicate noun to rename the subject, or it helps a predicate adjective to describe the subject.

S-Vl-PN

When there is a linking verb followed by a noun, we call that a subject – linking verb – predicate noun sentence pattern. We will label it like this: (Bob is a ball hitter.)

We diagram S-Vl-PN sentence patterns like this:

Bob is hitter

There are a few ways to recognize if you’re looking at a sentence with a transitive verb and direct object or with a linking verb and a predicate noun:

1. A linking verb shows equality between the subject and the noun that follows it. (Or you can say that a linking verb renames the subject.)

Bob is a ball hitter. Hitter renames Bob.

Bob is talented. Talented describes Bob.

In this example, both of the following are true: Bob is a ball hitter. Bob = ball hitter.

2. You can also reverse the sentence.

The ball hitter is Bob. Bob is a ball hitter.

These are interchangeable and mean the same thing.

This would not be the case for a transitive verb.

Bob hit the ball. The ball hit Bob.

Do these two sentences mean the same thing?

3. Finally, can you take out the verb and replace it with “is”?

Lucy became queen. Lucy is queen.

So, these are two ways that you can tell if you are dealing with a S-Vt-DO sentence pattern or a S-Vl-PN sentence pattern:

Does the subject = the noun that follows the verb?

Can you reverse the sentence without changing the meaning?

And, can you replace the verb with is and it still make sense?

Has anyone memorized the linking verbs? They are: (Mary had a Little Lamb)

feel, become, remain, (and) taste,

seem, appear,

look, sound, stay,

smell, grow, am, is,

are, was, were,

be, being, been.

Predicate

Just a reminder about predicates – The predicate is the part of the sentence which says something about the subject. In these sentences, the predicate will include both the verb and the predicate nominative.

Predicate Nominative

Can anyone tell me what predicate nominative means? Predicate – in the predicate portion of the sentence. Nominative – nominative means subject. So, essentially, you have a word that means the same thing as the subject that follows the predicate, or verb.

Nouns and Pronouns

You can use either a noun or a pronoun as a predicate nominative. (A pronoun replaces a noun in order to avoid repetition.)

Look at chart E. You can see on the noun chart that predicate nominative is one use of a noun.

Now look at chart F. When pronouns are being used as a predicate nominative, you will have to use only pronouns from the subjective, or nominative, list (I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they).

It is I. It is me.

The winner is he. not The winner is him.

This is she. This is her.

(Try reversing it.)

Tasks 1-4

Sentence 3

Mastery Charts

Charts D, K

Memorize linking verbs

Editing Exercise

Linking Verbs

(Mary had a Little Lamb)

Feel, become, remain, (and) taste,

seem, appear,

look, sound, stay,

smell, grow, am, is,

are, was, were,

be, being, been