Summary of Patterns
The following diagram above is not a sentence diagram. It shows how the different subtypes of verb relate to one another.
1.Intransitive: subject + VI
2.Linking: subject + VL + subject complement
3.Transitive: subject + VT + direct object
4.Ditransitive: subject + VD + indirect object + direct object
5.Complex Transitive: subject + VC + direct object + object complement
And here are diagrams of the same patterns, showing how they typically appear in a clause:
Instransitive:
Linking:
Note: tobe can have subject complements of other phrase types, e.g., PP, etc.
Transitive:
Ditransitive:
Complex Transitive:
Looking at the list above, it becomes evident that the subject is the only complement that is found in every pattern. Subjects are also unusual in that they are not part of the verb phrase; they are known as external complements. All the other complements are internal complements; that is, they are part of the verb phrase and hence part of the predicate.
To analyze sentences fluidly, you need to learn these verb patterns thoroughly. You should be able to look at the constituents after a verb and say to yourself, “This pattern means that this verb is of type __”. Note that if you consult a major reference grammar such as A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language or The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, you will find more subtypes of verbs. These other patterns, however, are minor variations on the basic ones we have presented. If you understand these five, the subtler variations will be relatively easy to understand.
Just as words can fall into several different parts of speech, verb can employ several different patterns. For this reason, you can’t just assume that a particular verb will always fall into one subtype. You must look at the sentence in which that verb appears.
Adjuncts
When we discussed intransitive verbs, we introduced the concept of an adjunct. Since these optional elements of the verb phrase play no role in deciding which verb pattern is used in a particular sentence, you don’t need to worry about them while you’re figuring out what pattern is used. In practical terms, this means you can disregard adverb phrases and prepositional phrases when determining the verb subtype.[1] (Note that we’re not ignoring them entirely; we’re just putting them aside temporarily while we figure out the basic pattern of the verb phrase.)[2]
Simply ignoring adverb phrases and prepositional phrases, however, will not be enough to allow us to distinguish all complements from all adjuncts. Under some conditions NPs and AdjPs can also be adjuncts. If we don’t distinguish those adjuncts, we can misanalyze our sentences.
(18) My wife fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken.
(19) My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning.
In both (18) and (19), two NPs follow the verb fed. (18) is straightforward. The dog receives the chicken; we have a pattern of indirect object + direct object. On the other hand, if we try to fit (19) to the same pattern, things seem strange. Is Tuesday morning being fed to the dog? Clearly not. The other pattern with two NPs, VC, doesn’t make much sense either. For that to work, Tuesday morning would be the object complement. But clearly that phrase isn’t renaming the dog. Tuesday morning actually tells us when the action occurred. In other words, it is an adjunct, and fed in (19) is of type VT, with only a direct object as a complement.
If all this seems very intricate, don’t despair. First, the better you know the basic patterns, the easier it will be to spot the unusual cases. Second, there is a relatively simple test to distinguish complements from adjuncts: do so substitution. The phrase do so, changed as necessary for the appropriate tense and number, can be used to replace a verb phrase and all its complements. It does not replace the adjuncts, however:
(18a) My wife fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken yesterday, and I did so today.
(19a) My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning, and I did so Wednesday evening.
(19b) *My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning, and I did so the cat.
In (18a), did so replaces the verb and both noun phrases (fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken). In (19a), it replaces fed the dog, but as (19b) shows it cannot replace fed in the morning, or even fed alone.
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Notes
[1] Some verbs (e.g., put) do require certain prepositional phrases; strictly speaking, such prepositional phrases are actually complements rather than adjuncts. But since none of our verb subtypes involve prepositional phrases, you do not need to distinguish between PP complements and adjuncts for this course.
[2] In some grammar books, you will find verb-phrase adjuncts called adverbials. This label is meant to express the traditional notion that such prepositional phrases and other constituents function in the same roles that adverbs do, while keeping distinct the form (AdvP, PP, etc.) from the function (adverbial). Although the desire to distinguish form and function is sound, I don’t use the term because in practice I have found that the similarity in form between adverb and adverbial produces continuing confusion.