To do these things requires a knowledge of the classification of verbs.

2. Be careful

a. To make the verb agree in person and number with the subject.

One of the branches obstructs (not obstruct) the view.

b. To use the past tense, and not the perfect participle, to assert past action or condition.

Ex. I saw (not seen) him.

Ex.

c. To use the perfect participle, never the past tense, in all perfect phrases.

I had gone (not went) down town.

To do these things requires a knowledge of the conjugation of the verb.

EXERCISE 34.

Turn these sentences into the passive, accounting for every change in the active.

1. The boys have broken their promise.

2. They gave us a cool reception.

3. You must have known the circumstances.

4. The innocent sometimes bear the blame.

5. A false report increased the anxiety.

6. He welcomed his guest with real warmth.

7. Fire destroyed the city.

8. He must have deceived his friends.

9. Some writers affect a lofty style.

10. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

332. Directions for parsing verbs and verb phrases.

In parsing a simple verb, state:

1. The conjugation, whether new or old.

2. Principal parts (as proof of 1).

3. Complete or incomplete.

4. If incomplete, whether

a. Copula.

b. Copulative.

c. Transitive.

d. Transitive-copulative.

5. Mode.

6. Tense.

7. Person and Number.

8. Agreement with subject.

333. In parsing a verb phrase, state:

1. The exact kind. This necessitates giving the mode, tense, and voice (if passive) which the phrase

expresses.

2. The composition.

Separate it into auxiliary (or auxiliary phrase), and infinitive or participle used as object or attribute. Remember that the auxiliary or assertive part of a verb phrase includes all but the last word, which expresses the chief attribute.

3. Conjugation, old or new.
4. Complete or incomplete.
5. If incomplete, which class.

6. Person and number.

7. Agreement.

A simple verb is always active. It is understood that a verb phrase is active unless it is stated that it is passive.

EXAMPLES FOR PARSING.

1. He came when he had finished his work. 2. If I were there, I should be asked.

Came is a verb of the old conjugation; principal parts, come, came, come, complete, indicative mode,

third person, singular number, to agree with its subject, he.

Had finished is a past perfect indicative phrase of the verb finish, principal parts, finish, finished. It is composed of the auxiliary had and the past participle used idiomatically.

Finish is a verb of the new conjugation, incomplete, transitive, used here in the third person, singular number, to agree with its subject, he.

Were is a verb of the old conjugation, principal parts, be, am, was, been. Incomplete, copula, subjunctive mode, first person, singular number, to agree with its subject, I.

Should be asked is a conditional passive phrase of the verb ask, composed of the auxiliary phrase should be, and the perfect participle used as attribute complement. Ask is a verb of the new conjugation, incomplete, transitive, used here in the first person, singular number, to agree with its subject, I.

EXERCISE 35

FOR ANALYSIS AND PARSING.

Pupils should be responsible for all points already covered.

1. A strong feeling had been growing upon her during the speech.

2. Enjoyment may afford strength to mind and body.

3. Four powerful Norman horses were attached to the load.

4. Upon the ruins of every old castle our traveller looked with veneration.

5. Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits.

6. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of

barren ground.

7. Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.

8. If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

9. His neighbors and friends have been very kind to him. 10. Each of us sees with his own eyes, and no two alike.

11. Whether the rate may be lessened does not now concern us. 12. Thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.

13. Truth crushed to earth shall rise again.

14. Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

15. They feared that he had been carried off by gypsies.

16. I tell you that which ye yourselves do know.

17. Without the art of printing, we should now have had no learning at all; for books would have perished faster than they could have been transcribed.

18. Soon our places in the school will have been taken by others. 19. Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?

20. By midsummer the channel of the Mississippi will have changed.

CHAPTER X.

THE ADVERB.

334. An adverb is a modifier of a modifier. Attributes, like objects themselves, have certain characteristics or limitations which require expression. A quality, for instance, implies the idea of degree, and our understanding of it is affected by our knowledge of how much or how little there is of it. Actions, too, are characterized by the place, time, manner, or reason of their occurrence; and all of these ideas modify or change our understanding of the action itself. So we need a class of words which express attributes or limitations of other attributes. A word which modifies or limits the meaning of a verb, adjective, adverb, or any part of speech except a substantive, is an adverb. The word signifies "joined to a verb," and the class is so called because its commonest office is to modify the verb.

Ex. Very little rain fell last night.

Sing softly.

The stream runs very rapidly.

The man stood just inside the door.

Do it exactly as I do.

335. Division of Labor in Adverbs. Not all adverbs can modify all the kinds of words which the adverb in general may modify.