Objects
In a sentence, the object is someone or something that receives the verb's action. For example, in the sentence, "He diddled the snake with a stick," the snake is the object of the verb, diddled. Objects are nouns or pronouns that generally come after the verb in the sentence.
To determine the object of the verb, find the verb and then ask the question, "What?" The object is the answer to that question. Considering the sentence, "Amelia spits expletives at her red-penned editor," I would ask, "What did Amelia spit?" The answer is expletives; thus, I have found the object (and the source of the editor's angst).
To most grammarians, a complete thought, i.e. a sentence, includes a subject, verb and object. The subject is who or what did the action, which is the verb, to the object. The object completes the story told by the sentence.
An exception to this rule, naturally, are sentences that transmit a complete idea via only the subject and verb. A primary example of such a sentence is the Bible verse, Jesus wept. No object is necessary.
Tomorrow: Parentheses
This post is brought to you by the April A to Z Blog Challenge. Check back all through April for daily discussions of writing conventions.
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13 comments:
I'm aftaid I'm guilty of leaving out the object in many sentences. Sometimes, as in the example, 'Jesus wept', and object insn't neccessary.
http://francene-wordstitcher.blogspot.com
I must say I am liking the A-Zing learning quite a bit just from a minute or so of reading. It has been a while since I have talked about sentence structure.
Thank you for the great post..:))
i am afraid my style of writing is how i talk---great teaching though--thanks
Ooh, grammar posts. Sorry I'm late to the party. I love gramamr posts!
I love that your grammar posts are really opportunities to have fun, like life itself i suppose. Thanks for swinging by my site today.
I think I've forgotten any grammer I may have learned...time to buy a text book I guess.
I'm very excited about tomorrow. Parentheses are among my top 10 most favorite punctuation marks. Although truth be told, I kind of like brackets a little better. Don't tell parentheses.
I saw that you commented on the Star Wars Blogathon -- thanks! You also got 10 points just for doing that. And you're entered in the weekly drawing. Plus there's a blogfest. Lots to do.
I didn't totally stop by just to hype my own blog. I also liked yours. I'm going to add it to my bloglist. Blogroll? Whatever.
Ooh I love this post. It's amazing they little things we leave out when writing. Looking forward to Parentheses.
Good O day. I laughed at your first example.
Fun post. I'm going back now to read the ones I've missed!
I like the refresher course. Thank you. :-)
This is educational. When I start reading a lot of the blogs in the Challenge I start feeling like I'm taking mini-classes.
Lee
Places I Remember
Wrote By Rote
An A to Z Co-host blog
Hi Lucy - I'm just glad to have some sensible information at a base level - grammar has never been my strong subject. So these posts are just wonderful .. cheers Hilary
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