1. What Is a Verb?
What
is a verb? Songs, poems and language teachers throughout history have attempted
to explain verbs to us. A verb is an action word, Luv Is a Verb, Everything’s
a Verb, where does it end? The concept of verbs is sort of a tricky one to
grasp, and then once you do, verbs only get more confusing.
Defining
a Verb
A
brilliant professor once said that “a verb is a word that does verb-y things.”
He said the same thing about nouns (they do noun-y things) and other
parts of speech as well, and while it’s not a very concrete or satisfying
definition, it’s probably the best one out there.
You
see, the way English works is that every word sits in a specific place and
plays a specific role in a sentence. And even though a word might not
really even be a real word, if it’s playing the role of the verb, then it’s a
verb.
Look at these examples:
Look at these examples:
ü
As
I phlomoggled my yard, I accidentally shallimped two
birds.
ü
Jack pazotors as
often as he can.
ü
They
couldn’t believe she had never chorstined before.
ü
This
time next week, we’ll be forrisking through the jungle!
If
you speak English fairly well, you can identify the verbs in those sentences
even though they aren’t real words. You can do this because they are doing
verb-y things. They have -ing, -ed and -s endings depending on when they happen
and who is doing them. They also follow the subjects of the sentences
and appear next to adverbs. And even though we don’t know what they mean, they
somehow convey action. They behave like verbs.
2.
What Is a Modifer ?
A modifier is
an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure.A
modifier is so called because it is said to modify (change the
meaning of) another element in the structure, on which it is dependent.
Typically the modifier can be removed without affecting the grammar of the
sentence. For example, in the English sentence This is a red
ball, the adjective red is a modifier, modifying the noun ball.
Removal of the modifier would leave This is a ball, which is
grammatically correct and equivalent in structure to the original sentence.
Other
terms used with a similar meaning are qualifier (the word qualify may
be used in the same way as modify in this context), attribute,
and adjunct. These concepts are often distinguished from complements and arguments,
which may also be considered dependent on another element, but are considered
an indispensable part of the structure. For example, in His face became
red, the word red might be called a complement or argument
of became, rather than a modifier or adjunct, since it cannot be
omitted from the sentence.
3.
Make a Setence
A
sentence is a group of words which starts with a capital letter and ends with a
full stop (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!). A sentence contains
or implies a predicate and a subject.Sentences contain clauses.Simple
sentences have one clause.Compound sentences and complex
sentences have two or more clauses.
Sentences
can contain subjects and objects.The subject in a sentence is
generally the person or thing carrying out an action. The object in a sentence
is involved in an action but does not carry it out, the object comes after the
verb.
For examples:
For examples:
The
boy climbed a tree.
If you want to say more about the
subject (the boy) or the object (the tree), you can add an adjective.For
example:
The
young boy climbed a tall tree.
If
you want to say more about how he climbed the tree you can use an adverb.
For
example:
The
young boy quickly climbed a tall tree.
The
sentence becomes more interesting as it gives the reader or listener more
information.
Sumber:
