Objects
A verb may be followed by an object that completes the verb's meaning.
Two kinds of objects follow verbs:
direct objects and indirect objects. To
determine if a verb has a direct object, isolate the verb and make it into a
question by placing "whom?" or "what?" after it. The
answer, if there is one, is the direct object:
- Direct Object
- The advertising executive drove a flashy red
Porsche.
- Direct Object
- Her secret admirer gave her a bouquet of
flowers.
The second sentence above also contains an indirect object. An indirect object
(which, like a direct object, is always a
noun or pronoun) is, in a sense, the
recipient of the direct object. To determine if a
verb has an indirect object, isolate the
verb and ask to whom?, to
what?, for whom?, or for what? after
it. The answer is the indirect object.
Not all verbs are followed by objects.
Consider the verbs in the following
sentences:
- The guest speaker rose from her chair to protest.
- After work, Randy usually jogs around the canal.
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Verbs that take objects are known as
transitive verbs. Verbs not
followed by objects are called intransitive verbs.
Some verbs can be either transitive verbs
or intransitive verbs, depending on the context:
- Direct Object
- I hope the Senators win the next game.
- No Direct Object
- Did we win?
Subject Complements
In addition to the transitive verb and the
intransitive verb, there is a third kind of
verb called a linking verb. The word (or
phrase) which follows a linking verb is
called not an object, but a subject complement.
The most common linking verb is "be." Other
linking verbs are "become," "seem,"
"appear," "feel," "grow," "look," "smell,"
"taste," and "sound," among others. Note that some of these
are sometimes linking verbs, sometimes transitive verbs, or sometimes intransitive verbs, depending
on how you use them:
- Linking verb with subject complement
- He was a radiologist before he became a
full-time yoga instructor.
- Linking verb with subject complement
- Your homemade chili smells delicious.
- Transitive verb with direct object
- I can't smell anything with this terrible cold.
- Intransitive verb with no
object
- The interior of the beautiful new Buick smells strongly
of fish.
Note that a subject complement can be either a
noun ("radiologist", "instructor") or an
adjective ("delicious").
Object Complements
(by David Megginson)
An object complement is similar to a
subject complement, except that (obviously) it modifies
an object rather than a subject. Consider
this example of a subject complement:
- The driver seems tired.
In this case, as explained above, the adjective
"tired" modifies the noun "driver," which is
the subject of the sentence.
Sometimes, however, the noun will be the
object, as in the following example:
- I consider the driver tired.
In this case, the noun "driver" is the
direct object of the verb "consider,"
but the adjective "tired" is still acting as its
complement.
In general, verbs which have to do with perceiving,
judging, or changing something can cause their direct objects to take an object complement:
- Paint it black.
- The judge ruled her out of order.
- I saw the Prime Minister sleeping.
In every case, you could reconstruct the last part of the
sentence into a sentence of its own using a
subject complement: "it is black," "she is out of
order," "the Prime Minister is sleeping."
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