complement because it adds information about the subject), and adverbial (‘in - called adverbial because it further exemplifies the verb). The elements have here’ to go in the right order for the sentence to work. If we tried to say here in warm ‘*It the sentence would not work. In the same way, we have to be careful about the is’, types of words we can put in the slots (subject, verb, etc). We for example, can’t, put an adjective or an adverb in the subject is warm in slot (‘*stealthily here/inhospitable is warm in or a verb in the adverbial position warm here’), (‘*It’s go’). However, there are some changes we are allowed to make to our sentence elements, and these will alter the meaning of the sentence. For example, a simple element-order change (subject-verb -> verb-subject) will make our sentence into a question it warm in (‘Is here?’). Unlike the example we have used so far, some sentences only have two elements, subject and verb (e.g. ‘He laughed’, ‘They disagreed’, ‘It rained!’). Verbs such as these which take an object are called intransitive. Some verbs can don’t be either transitive (i.e. they do take an object) or intransitive, e.g. the ‘She opened door/The door opened. The one sentence element we have not mentioned so far is the object, exemplified in sentences such as the door, entered the warm ‘He opened ‘He room. Once again, the sequence of sentence elements is crucial, so we cannot say room entered But the situation is complicated by the fact that some ‘*The he’. sentences have two objects, a direct object and an indirect object. Direct objects refer to things or persons affected by the verb, e.g. sang a ‘He song, ‘Pizarro conquered Peru', him. ‘She loved An indirect object refers to the person or thing that (in one grammarian’s from the action, e.g. sang me a painted him a phrase) ‘benefits’ ‘He song’, ‘She gave a ring to my girlfriend, should we pay taxes to the picture’, ‘I ‘Why government?'.
complement because it adds information about the subject), and adverbial (‘in here’ - called adverbial because it further exemplifies the verb). The elements have to go in the right order for the sentence to work. If we tried to say ‘*It here in warm is’, the sentence would not work. In the same way, we have to be careful about the types of words we can put in the slots (subject, verb, etc). We can’t, for example, put an adjective or an adverb in the subject slot (‘*stealthily is warm in here/inhospitable is warm in here’), or a verb in the adverbial position (‘*It’s warm go’). However, there are some changes we are allowed to make to our sentence elements, and these will alter the meaning of the sentence. For example, a simple element-order change (subject-verb -> verb-subject) will make our sentence into a question (‘Is it warm in here?’). Unlike the example we have used so far, some sentences only have two elements, subject and verb (e.g. ‘He laughed’, ‘They disagreed’, ‘It rained!’). Verbs such as these which don’t take an object are called intransitive. Some verbs can be either transitive (i.e. they do take an object) or intransitive, e.g. ‘She opened the door/The door opened. The one sentence element we have not mentioned so far is the object, exemplified in sentences such as ‘He opened the door, ‘He entered the warm room. Once again, the sequence of sentence elements is crucial, so we cannot say ‘*The room entered he’. But the situation is complicated by the fact that some sentences have two objects, a direct object and an indirect object. Direct objects refer to things or persons affected by the verb, e.g. ‘He sang a song, ‘Pizarro conquered Peru', ‘She loved him. An indirect object refers to the person or thing that (in one grammarian’s phrase) ‘benefits’ from the action, e.g. ‘He sang me a song’, ‘She painted him a picture’, ‘I gave a ring to my girlfriend, ‘Why should we pay taxes to the government?'.
379.HowToTeachEnglish.docx