NhülyaYILMAZ

Self-Help: Grammar-Check, III

Last week, the focus was on Verb-Subject-Agreement, with an announcement of this week’s focal point: Direct Objects and Prepositional Objects. As before, the intent here is to briefly review these grammatical elements of language.

Direct Objects

The first point to note in this context is the fact that not every sentence appears with a direct object in it. What to be aware of, however, when one does . . . Not much. Identify the subject and the verb of a sentence; if the subject performs an action on an object (a person or a thing), then you have found the direct object:

  • My family takes a trip to the same seaside town every summer.
    • My family = Subject; to take = Verb (in its base form in the sample sentence)

On which word does “family” perform the action of ‘taking’? Your answer here takes you to the Direct Object = “a trip”

PLEASE NOTE: The key concept here is that a verb MUST perform an action in order for a sentence to have a Direct Object. If a verb only indicates a “link”, then there cannot be a Direct Object in that sentence, for example, as in, “My family was always pleased with the accommodations.”

Prepositional Objects

The sample sentence immediately above, the one with a ‘linking’ verb, has no direct object (because it does not indicate an action). It has, however, a prepositional object:

  • My family was always pleased with the accommodations.

The noun “accommodations” is the object of the preposition “with”; hence, the full underlined phrase makes up the prepositional object of the sentence.

The first sample sentence, too, has a prepositional object:

  • My family takes a trip to the same seaside town every summer.

The noun “town” is the object of the preposition “to”; hence, “to town” makes up the prepositional object of the sentence. The words “same” (an adverb) and “seaside” (an adjective), different grammatical elements, function here as modifiers of the prepositional object.

Next Post: A sample text-based worksheet for self-editing practices

photo-1532153955177-f59af40d6472

 

 

 

 

 

NhülyaYILMAZ

Self-Help: Grammar-Check, I

We rely on language in order to communicate. In its spoken, written and signed forms. I have no experience nor do I possess any expertise in sign-language. As for spoken language, this platform is obviously not appropriate. Written language, however, is a discipline I have worked with, taught extensively and used for personal writings throughout the majority of my adult-life. Based on my prolonged and active involvement with language in its written form, I take the liberty to post related texts on this site.

Phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context are the five elements of language. It is through the joint work of these components, along with grammar, semantics, and pragmatics,  that we create meaningful communication. It is not my intent to turn this post into a classroom subject-matter with a barrage of materials to digest for no practical purpose. I would like to highlight instead some functional information regarding grammar, the most important building-block of the structure we call “language”.

notebook-2465914__480

And today’s sentence d i s s e c t i o n begins . . .

The integral parts of a sentence we sometimes tend to forget and, as a result, neglect, are: Subject ~ Verb (a.k.a. the Predicate) ~ Object (Direct and Indirect Object)

  • In order to identify the subject (italicized in the sample sentences below), we ask the question “who” or “what”:
    • The award-winning writer was invited to a book-reading.
    • A book-reading was planned in honor of the award-winning writer.
  • The verb / predicate is the word that articulates the action of the subject:
    • Respectively, “To invite” and “To plan” in the sample sentences above (in their base, or, infinitive forms)
  • Any sentence can have a direct and an indirect object all at once, or display only one of the object forms. Neither one of the sample sentences used here have an object. Imagine this example:
    • The award-winning author gave away several copies of his debut book. (The italicized sentence part constitutes a direct object.)
    • The award-winning author gave his / her audience several copies of his debut book. (The italicized sentence part constitutes an indirect object.)

Next Post: Verb-Subject Agreement, and more . . .