Basic Sentence Patterns 3

e.g. The girl bought a dress.
In Pattern 7 the verb is completed by a noun (or pronoun), for which one can substitute him, her, it or them. This noun, as shown by the superscript 2, does not have the same referent as the subject. It is called the direct object of the verb and has the grammatical meaning of “undergoer of the action” or “that is affected by the verb.”
Examples:
The driver turned the car around.
Someone cleans the palace.
The waitress poured the tea.
She read the message.


e.g. The mother bought the girl a dress.
In Pattern 8 there are five matters to be observed:
1- The superscripts 1, 2, and 3 indicate that each noun has a different referent; mother, girl, and dress are three separated entities.
2- We see two grammatical objects after the verb bought. These two objects are called, in order, the indirect and the direct object. If we omit the first one, the pattern becomes number 7 and dress is seen to be the direct object.
3- The verbs that can be used in Pattern 8 are restricted. Some of the common ones are give, make, find, tell, buy, write, send, ask, play, build, teach, assign, feed, offer, throw, hand, pass, sell, pay.
4- A Pattern 8 sentence may be transformed into passive by making either the direct or the indirect object the subject of the passive verb.
*A dress was bought the girl by her mother.
The girl was bought a dress by her mother.
In some cases, however, the passive transform does not sound fully natural and seems to demand a preposition, as in:
The sergeant found the recruit a rifle.
A rifle was found (for) the recruit.
5- The grammatical meaning of the indirect object is “beneficiary of the action of the verb-plus-direct-object.”
She sold the student a ticket.
He built them a playpen.
He played me a game of chess.
She asked her a question.






Pattern 9 contains a choice of eight different forms in the final position. These are illustrated in the following examples:
a) The basketball team chose John captain.
b) He considered her brilliant.
c) I thought the caller you.
d) We supposed him upstairs.
e) I imagined her eating.
f) I believed him seated.
g) We considered her in the way.
h) We thought Kim to be a fine player.
Pattern 9, likes is predecessor Pattern 8, has two objects following the verb. But it differs from Pattern 8 in three respects:
1- In the order of objects the direct object comes first. In some sentences, if we eliminate the second object, we are left with Pattern 7 which contains only the direct object after the verb:
The basketball team chose John.
The second object is called the objective complement, because it completes the direct object.
2- In Pattern 9 both objects have the same referent; that is, both John and captain refer to the same person.
3- In Pattern 9, only the first object, the direct object, can be made the subject of a passive verb. We can transform he pattern sentence into:
John was chosen captain.