I. Verb Particles: Verb particles are the same words that usually precede nouns (prepositions) and make them into modifiers . When they group with the verb, however, they’re called verb particles. Verb particles are frequent in English. To get an idea of how very frequent they are, fill in the following blanks with common two-word verbs (like turn on):

1. Butch __________ early in the morning but did not want to ____________. He wanted to _____________ sleeping. He was coming down with a bad cold and thought he should _______________his strength by ________________. His mother, however, had ____________ her mind not to let him _______________ staying in bed. She told Butch to _______________ his clothes at once.

2. Identify which sentences contain two-word verbs (a verb plus a verb particle)--as opposed to a verb followed by a prepositional phrase. In order to decide, "chunk" the sentence--break it and see whether the preposition-type word goes with the verb or with the noun following. Another test is that if the word is part of the verb, you might be able to substitute a single verb for the verb plus verb particle. Ex. "she blew up the bridge" = "she exploded the bridge." The up in "The wind blew up the chimney" is a preposition: it chunks with the following noun, and the whole thing functions as an adverbial to answer the question where.

A. The car could turn on a dime.

B. The company will turn on the electricity tomorrow.

C. The children ran across the street.

D. The auditor ran across an error in the records.

E. The invalid looked out the window.

F. Foam put out the fire.

II. Transitive vs Linking Verbs: Identify which is which. If the sentence pattern is SVO, the verb is transitive; if the sentence pattern is SV_LNP/SV_LAP, the verb is linking. Hint: If the verb is linking, a tense of become or be (like is, are, was, will be, etc.) should substitute for it.

1. They dragged the box down the stairs.

2. Redfield had his stenographer with him.

3. The attorney must have been Nils Henson.

4. The senators heard snickering in the hall.

5. They remained stockholders in the company.

6. Dad could be a Democrat.

7. That muscle controls the thumb.

8. Dick has been a fighter.

9. Dick had been fighting all challengers.

III. Writing rules: Give the "rule" for how to derive a singular third person present-tense verb from the infinitive form (ex. how to derive "she gives" from "to give"). I don’t have to give you data because you can generate it yourself. List the infinitive form (like "to give") of 5 regular verbs; beside each put the third-person present-tense singular form ("she gives"). Then, by looking at what changes, figure out the pattern.