Intermediate English Grammar for ESL Learners - Robin Torres-Gouzerh 2016

Verb phrases
1 The sentence

The verb in a sentence can also appear in a verb phrase.

He has often spoken of you.

She will not be able to understand this document.

Sometimes extra information is added before the subject and verb, or between the subject and the verb. This information is often adverbial. In the first example below, the adverbial phrases tell where, how frequently, and when the action took place. In the second example, the adverbial phrase tells why and when the action took place.

In Pennsylvania, Marc often went running in the morning.

Marc, because he was feeling unhealthy, went running in the morning.

In both of these examples, when we ask the question “Who went running?” the answer is “Marc” — the subject of both sentences. The added information is that he often ran in the morning when he was in Pennsylvania, and that he ran because he felt unhealthy.

Exercise 1.3 Underline both the subject and the verb or verb phrase in each sentence.

1. The big, brown dog sitting in the shade is hungry.

2. I always drink coffee in the morning before work.

3. After getting to the hotel room, Saul ordered room service.

4. The youth hostels we stayed in while we were in Budapest weren’t too expensive.

5. My professor, after noticing that I had been studying hard, was nicer to me.

6. Maybe her father is sicker than you think.

7. In the future, presidential elections will be held on the Internet.

8. After the show, the people who were sitting in the front row got up.