Verbs (kata kerja) bahasa Inggris mempunyai beberapa pola yang disebut dengan istilah verb patterns
- Alice likes sweets. (Subject – Alice, Verb – likes, Object – sweets)
- The principal punished the boy. (Subject – principal, Verb – punished, Object – boy)
- The monk burned himself. (Subject – monk, Verb – burned, Object – himself)
Alice likes …what? Sweets
The principal punished …whom? The boy
Jawaban atas pertanyaan what atau whom disebut direct object (objek langsung). Perhatikan juga penggunaan reflexive pronoun (e.g. myself, himself, herself, themselves etc.) sebagai object pada contoh kalimat ketiga diatas.
Beberapa verbs diikuti oleh adverb particles. Sebagai contoh: put on, take off, give away, bring up, call in etc. Kadang-kadang particle nya terpisah dariverb dan diletakkan sesudah object.
- He threw it away.
- They called the visitor in.
- He put his coat on.
- His grandmother brought him up.
- You must send it back.
Perhatikan pada contoh diatas, particle nya diletakkan sesudah object jika object nya merupakan personal pronoun (kata ganti orang) atau bila object berupa kata pendek.
Perbedaan antara adverb particle dan preposition yaitu particle berdekatan dengan kata kerjanya (verb) sedangkan preposition berdekatan dengan noun atau pronoun yang mengaturnya. Adverb particle berikut ini tidak pernah berperan sebagai preposition – away, back, out, backward, forward, upward, downward dll. Namun on, off, in, up, down, to, from dll., bisa berperan sebagai particles dan prepositions.
Kalau object nya panjang atau bila mau ditekankan maka adverb particle diletakan sebelum object.
- The chief guest gave away the prizes.
- He put on an air of innocence.
- The sailors put out the fire in the hold of the ship.
- We will not throw away anything useful.