Test yourself 43.1

1. They had walked for miles and miles.

2. Henry felt guilt and shame for what he had done.

3. Vermont has lots of old houses and rustic barns.

4. The young bride is going shopping with her mother or mother-in-law.

5. Paying for gas and electricity costs a lot more this year than last.

Test yourself 44.1

1. They often call each other and talk all afternoon.

2. Adam wrote letters to the company and spoke to their representatives.

3. He invented the product but lost money in the process.

4. Stephen flew to Europe and visited his childhood friend.

5. I received your message yesterday but couldn't respond to it immediately.

Test yourself 44.2

1. The horse stepped back and rolled its eyes.

2. Amanda is wearing long sleeves but carrying a parasol.

3. When Kathy and her daughter travel to Boston, they always visit Harvard and MIT.

4. On Sundays Mr. Adams and his neighbor play golf and have lunch in the clubhouse.

5. He loves to cook and entertain.

Remember the sentence, The little boy laughed? As we talked about earlier, The little boy is a noun phrase (see Lesson 28) and laughed is a verb phrase. There are different kinds of verb phrases, and we can begin to discover them by seeing what we can substitute for the verb phrase, laughed, in this sentence. The underlined portions of the sentences below are all verb phrases, and any one of them can replace laughed in the sentence, The little boy laughed.

1. The little boy left.

2. The little boy chased the ball.

3. The little boy chased the red ball.

4. The little boy chased it.

5. The little boy chased Henry.

Of course, there are lots of things that cannot replace laughed in this sentence, for example:

1. 6. *The little boy his extremely.

2. 7. *The little boy near from.

3. 8. *The little boy they.

You're probably not surprised to learn that his extremely, near from, and they are not verb phrases.

Have you noticed anything that all the underlined verb phrases in sentences 1–5 have in common? Each verb phrase has a verb. In fact, in sentence 1, the verb phrase has nothing in it but a verb, left. A verb phrase may also have other words, as you can see in sentences 2–5, but the least that every verb phrase has to have is a verb. (See Unit 2 to remind yourself about verbs.)

Take a look at the following questions, each with an action verb.

1. What did you write?

2. Who did you annoy?

3. What did you throw?

These are all perfectly fine questions and easy to answer, e.g. I wrote a letter, I annoyed my neighbor, I threw a ball.

Now compare the first group of questions to the next group, each of which also has an action verb.

1. 4. *What did you sleep?

2. 5. *What did you die?

3. 6. *Who did you arrive?

These questions are all strange and can't really be answered. That's because the verbs in this second group are verbs that do not act on anything.

Thus, you can see that there are two kinds of verbs. One kind, such as write, annoy, and throw, acts upon something. The noun (or noun phrase; see Lesson 28) that the verb acts upon is called the direct object of the sentence. (You'll learn more about direct objects in Lesson 39.) Those verbs that act on something are called transitive verbs. Typically, in statements, a transitive verb is followed by the noun (or noun phrase) that it is acting upon.

Other verbs, such as sleep, die, and arrive, do not act upon something. In fact, these verbs can't have a direct object. Notice that you can't say, for example: *I usually sleep the dog, *They'll arrive the book. Those verbs that do not act on something and appear in sentences that do not have a direct object are called intransitive verbs.

Do the following sentences seem strange to you?

1. John Smith saw John Smith in the mirror.

2. My friends were talking among my friends.

3. Sam's only cat was grooming Sam's only cat.

These sentences are strange because they're missing reflexive pronouns, those pronouns that end in -self or -selves. As you can see from the sentences below, we use reflexive pronouns whenever we refer to the same person or thing more than once in the same basic sentence. Sentences 1–3 should be stated like this:

1. 4. John Smith saw himself in the mirror.

2. 5. My best friends were talking among themselves.

3. 6. Sam's only cat was grooming herself.

Here are some more examples, first without and then with a reflexive pronoun.

1. 7a. The boy washed the boy.

2. 7b. The boy washed himself.

3. 8a. Tom and Harry watched Tom and Harry on the video.

4. 8b. Tom and Harry watched themselves on the video.

5. 9a. You can see you doing that.

6. 9b. You can see yourself doing that.

Notice that if we hear, for example, The boy washed the boy, without a reflexive pronoun, then we assume that someone's talking about two different boys. Similarly, the sentence He shaved him suggests that the person (a male) who did the shaving and the person (a male) who received the shaving are not the same. The reflexive pronoun lets the listener know that the speaker is referring to the same person or thing.

What are the features of this book that will help you use it effectively?

• We assume no prior knowledge of English grammar. Depending on your background and interest, you can either work the book through from cover to cover or just read about selected topics.

• We utilize user-friendly, easy-to-understand language, avoiding excessive technical terminology.

• Information is presented in lesson format; most lessons are short, helping to make the material manageable.

• Numerous exercises allow you to test yourself after new information is presented; the exercises gradually incorporate more knowledge while building on prior information.

• Each exercise has a sample item done for you, to help you with the exercise.

• Each exercise is separated into two parts: Getting started and More practice. With each Getting started part, we provide a page reference to the answers, so you'll immediately know whether or not you're on the right track. For More practice items, answers are provided on the accompanying website.

• In addition to exercises, each lesson contains easy to find Quick tips. These provide convenient “tricks” to help you master the material or highlight the main concepts in each lesson.

• We've also included short sections called To enhance your understanding. These sections are intended for those of you who are interested in more than basic information. These sections can easily be skipped by beginners; they're not necessary for understanding any material later on in the book.

• Throughout the text, ungrammatical sentences are identified with an asterisk (*) at the beginning.