That&#x27;s your brain taking a shortcut because you know that &quot;punched&quot; is a verb, and that a verb in that form is likely to be followed by a subject noun, etc. Even if you never study grammar and couldn&#x27;t even answer the question &quot;which is the verb in this sentence?&quot; your brain has still learned to recognise the different types of word which is why you understand them.<p>Disclaimer: I&#x27;m not a linguist, but by layman&#x27;s standards I&#x27;m pretty confident.