English for the Eager Learners

Lesson 2
18
Lesson 2
Verbs
A VERB tells us something about a person or thing and is
the most important word in a sentence.
When we write, we first have some nouns in our mind, such as ‘key’
and ‘door’. (Please refer back to page 1.) Then we look for a suitable
verb ‘opens’ to match the nouns like this:
Subject
(noun)
Verb Object
(noun)
A key opens a door.
*
‘Key’ and ‘door’ are countable concrete nouns, which need an article ‘a’.
Here the noun ‘key’ governs the verb ‘opens’. It is subject (the action doer) of the verb.
The second noun ‘door’ (the action receiver) is the object governed by the verb ‘opens’.
Transitive verb
The verb ‘opens’ is a transitive verb because it passes the action from the action doer ‘key’
(subject) to the action receiver ‘door’ (object). A transitive verb must take an object.