Homogeneous Subjects( однородный)

Another tricky case is the agreement of the predicate with a group of homogeneous subjects, i.e. subjects naming two or more items.

1. When a subject has two or more items joined by and, both…and, the plural verb is used:

· Jean and David are moving back to Australia.

If homogeneous subjects connected by andare expressed by infinitives, the predicate verb is singular.

However, and can join two attributes refering to one noun, or phrases connected by and can denote something viewed as a single item. In this case the verb is singular:

· A yellow and red carweredamaged. (two cars, one is yellow, the other is red)

2. When homogeneous subjects are joined by or, either…or, neither…nor, not only.. butalso, the verb agrees with the last item (the one which is closer to the verb). This is known as a proximity rule:

· Neither you nor I am right.

· Neither I nor you are right.

The proximity rule holds true for sentences with inversion, when the subject follows the predicate. The predicate verb agrees with the item that comes first (the one which is closest to the verb):

There is a table and some chairs in the room. – There are some chairs and a table in the room.

HerecomesTomand the girls. – Herecomethe girls and Tom.

3. Homogeneous subjects joined by as well as, as much as, rather than, more than, together with…, accompanied by are followed by the predicate verb which agrees with the item that comes first:

My sister as well as my parents is a teacher.

My parents as well as my sister are teachers.

14.

Dynamic verbs are verbs which describe actions, e.g. go, ask, walk, explain, work.

Stative verbs are verbs which do not describe actions; they include verbs related to:

· the senses: feel, hear, smell, sound, taste;

· thinking / believing: think, suppose, expect, doubt, guess, imagine, know, realize, regard, remember, understand;

· possession: belong to, have, own;

· emotional states: dislike, hate, like, love, mind, prefer;

· appearance: appear, seem, be;

· wants and preferences: want, need, prefer, wish;

· others: contain, depend on, find, involve, mean.

Some verbs which are normally stative verbs can become dynamic verbs with some change in meaning.

Most of the stative verbs refer to states that are clearly thought of as permanent rather than temporary:

I know Jane very well.

When one of the stative verbs is used in the progressive it is being used with a change of meaning or to show something is temporary, for emphasis or to suggest that one’s feelings are in the process of development.

I love chocolate. (permanently true)

I’m in Paris for my two-week summer holiday and I’m loving every minute of it. (stresses the temporary nature of the activity)

15. Speak on the object & its types.

The objectis a secondary part of the sentence which completes or restricts the meaning of a verb or sometimes as adjective, a word denoting state, or a non.

I was very proud of it.

He closedthe door.

Kinds of object.

There are three kinds of objects in English : the direct, the indirect object, the cognate object.

The direct object.

The direct object is a non-prepositional one that follows transitive verbs, adjectives, or statives and completes their meaning.

Is used after transitive verbs with which it is closely connected as it denotes a person or thing directly affected by the action of the verb. It is used without any proposition.

I wrote a poem.

You like arguing, don’t you?

Again I moved my head negatively.

2.The indirect object.

From the point of view of their semantics and certain grammatical characteristics indirect objects fall into two types:

a) The indirect object of the first type is attached only to intransitive verbs. It is expressed by a noun or pronoun which as a rule denotes (or, in the case of pronouns, points out) a person who is the addressee or recipient of the action of the verb. So it is convenient to call an object of this typethe indirect recipient object. It is joined to the headword either without a preposition or by the preposition to (occasionally for). The indirect recipient object is generally used with transitive verbs.

He gave the kid two dollars.

c)The indirect object of the second type is attached to verbs, adjectives, statives and sometimes adverbs. It is usually a noun (less often a pronoun) denoting an inanimate object, although it may be a gerund, a gerundial phrase or complex, an infinitive complex or a clause. Its semantics varies, but it never denotes the addressee (recipient) of the action of the governing verb. So it may be called the indirect non-recipient object.The indirect non-recipient object can only be joined to its headword by means of a preposition.

One must always hope for the best.

The indirect o. of the second type can be called the prepositional indirect o.

The pr. ind. o. is used not only with verbs but also with adjectives, words denoting state, nouns of verbal origin.

I an uneasy about it.

· The complex o.

The direct and the prepositional indirect o. may be simple and complex.

The complex o.consists of two components, of which the second stands in predicate relation to the first. The two components form an indivisible unit and must be regarded is one part of the sentence. The complex o. can be noun- prepositional and prepositional.

I observedAgnes turn pale.

The first component of the complex o. is a noun in the common case or the possessive pronoun, a personal pronoun in the objective case or a possessive pronoun; the second is an infinitive, a participle, a gerund, a noun, an adjective, a word denoting state, or a prepositional phrase.

He hated her to work in the boarding house.

She thinks herself very clever.

3.The cognate object is a non-prepositional object which is attached to otherwise intransitive verbs and is always expressed by nouns derived from, or semantically related to, the root of the governing verb.

The child smiled the smile and laughed the laugh of contentment.

They struck him a heavy blow.

4.The retained object. This term is to be applied in case an active construction is transformed into a passive one and the indirect object of the active construction becomes the subject of the passive construction. The second object, the direct one, may be retained in the transformation, though the action of the predicate-verb is no more directed upon it. Therefore it is called aretained object.