When a sentence uses a transitive verb to describe an action, it’s necessary for the subject to take a direct object and to act on it: “The woman spurned her suitor last week.” “Her suitor found a ...

Like the subject, the object is usually a noun (‘the piano’) or a noun phrase, (‘the big, black piano’). Verbs that take objects describe some kind of action rather than a state of being.

This question originally appeared on Quora. Answer by Thomas Wier, assistant professor of linguistics at the Free University of Tbilisi: Short Answer: Yes, but not in English. What do we mean by ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract The paper comprises an investigation of the order of the main sentence elements (subject, verb, and object) in Greek stichic verse, and ...