Business English: A Practice Book by Rose Buhlig

CHAPTER VIII

THE VERB VERBS may be _transitive_ or _intransitive_. A verb is transitive when it needs an object to complete its meaning; that is, when the action passes over (Latin, _transire_, to pass over) from the subject or doer to the object or receiver; as, He _hit_ the ball. A verb is intransitive when it needs no object to complete its meaning; as, The crowd _cheered_. Some intransitive verbs require a predicate noun or pronoun in the nominative case, or an adjective, to complete their meaning. They are the verbs _be_, _become_, _appear_, _seem_, _feel_, _taste_, _look_, _smell_; as, _Adjective_: The berries taste _sour_. _Noun_: John is my _brother_. _Pronoun_: It is _I_. Such verbs are sometimes called _copulatives_. =Exercise 98= Tell whether each verb in the following sentences is transitive or intransitive and whether it is followed by a noun or a pronoun in the nominative or the objective case or by a complementary adjective.