3. Brutus kills himself, and Antony shows his generous nature by bringing out his good qualities as he lies dead.

4. His brother asked him to bring him his racket.

222. As you rewrite the following sentences, remove any ambiguity you detect in them:

1. I did not write my composition in my notebook because I left it in my locker.

2. While coasting, a boy caught his foot in the railing of a bridge, and it was torn off.

3. Antonio persuaded Bassanio to give the judge his wife's ring, in payment for getting him out of court.

4. The next winter he pulled a man out of the canal after he had gone through the ice and been sucked under it by the current.

5. He answered that he would sell the horse, and the man looked him over.

6. As Death and the Woman neared the sailors on the becalmed ship, they saw them throwing dice.

7. The defendant claimed in court yesterday that his brother gave him the deed to the property at a time when he was in sufficiently good health to know what he was about.

223. Rewrite the following sentences, and be prepared to give reasons for the changes you make:

1. The train, after being derailed, crashed into an iron bridge, and it was completely smashed.

on

2. John Fox was run over and instantly killed by a runaway horse his way home from work.

3. Mr. Burton gathered his belongings, and after bidding his brother good-by, he left his house.

4. Near a large hole in the woods, we found the wing and tail feathers of a pheasant, which made us think that it belonged to a fox. 5. He (Gawain) told the king, but he said he was disobedient as he didn't do what he told him to do.

79. Possessives. It is to be noted that the possessive pronouns are complete without the apostrophe; for example, my, mine, our, ours, her, hers, its, their, theirs, whose. We must not confuse it's (it is) with the pronoun its.

EXERCISES

224. The correct use of the possessive pronouns is illustrated in the following sentences. Be prepared to copy them from dictation.

1. Whose do you prefer, his, mine, or yours?

2. We left ours and took theirs.

3. The chicken that flapped its wings is hers.

4. Hers is much better than theirs.

225. In copying the following sentences, supply the apostrophe where it is necessary:

1. Why is his list so much longer than yours?

2. This mornings paper says its going to rain.
3. The clothing in the lockers is theirs.

4. My book has come out of its covers.

5. This school, with its excellent equipment, is ours.

6. The purse was not hers, as I afterward found out.

7. Theyre planning to take their rifles.

226. In the last theme you have written, look for mistakes in possessive pronouns.

227. Write a conversation (1) between two girls who are making arrangements for a party, or (2) between two boys who are planning to organize a baseball team. In revising, watch the possessive pronoun.

80. Pronouns in -self. Pronouns in -self are emphatic or reflexive. We say,

I prefer to attend to that myself.

Let him fight it out for himself.
Know thyself.

But we ought not to say,

Another girl and myself took a walk this afternoon.

We never think of saying,

Myself took a walk.

EXERCISE

228. In copying the following sentences, substitute other pronouns for those in parenthesis whenever you think best.

1. John and (I) are the two eldest boys in the family.

2. He will probably write you, as he has already written (myself), that he needs us both.

3. The prize will come to either you or (myself), and neither of us should allow (ourselves) to be disappointed over the result.

4. You have done better than (I).

5. Some credit should be given (myself) if I do say it (myself).

VERBS

No part of speech is more important than the verb. Like nouns and pronouns, verbs change their form in order to express different meanings, and in addition have the help of such words as shall, may, can, etc., which are known as "auxiliaries." This inflection of a verb is called its conjugation. The inflection of nouns includes changes in number and case; the inflection, or conjugation, of verbs includes changes in voice, mood, tense, person, and number.

81. Transitive and Intransitive Verbs. According to their use in a sentence, verbs are either transitive or intransitive. Transitive means going over. If the verb is transitive, the action goes over from the subject to a noun or pronoun called the direct object; for example, in "John hit the ball," the action goes over to the ball. If the verb is intransitive, there is nothing to go over; for example, "We started early," Everybody laughed." Many verbs may be used both transitively and intransitively.

Note these examples:

1. We began our journey early.
2. The day began pleasantly.
3. The car runs easily.

EXERCISES

229. Write sentences in which each of the following verbs takes a direct object: write, run, strike, sing, blow, ring, break.

230. Write sentences in which each of the verbs in Exercise 229 is used without a direct object.

231. State whether the italicized verbs in the following sentences are transitive or intransitive, and give your reasons.

1. The boy read the lesson.

2. The boy read from a well-known story.

3. The story was read to the child by his sister. (See sect. 84.)

4. John hastened home and told his father the news.

5. The guide hastened the departure of the party.

6. The possession of the Mississippi was an important factor in the Civil War. (See sect. 71, 2.)

7. He was there, and said that the boy rang the alarm.

8. The sentinel shouted, "Stop! or I will fire."

9. I waited one hour. (See sect. 72, 6.)

10. We saw that he was liable to fall.

II. They could scarcely believe what they saw.

82. Auxiliary Verbs. An auxiliary verb is one that is used in a verb phrase merely to "help "another verb express a certain meaning. The following may be so used: be (am, is, are, was, were, etc.), have (has, had), do (does, did), shall, will, may, can, must, might, could, would, and should. (See also sect. 90.)

EXERCISES

232. In the following sentences, point out the auxiliary verbs and the main verbs:

233. Write sentences in which is, has, and does are used (1) as auxiliaries, (2) as main verbs

83. Principal Parts. The principal parts of a verb are the forms which determine its conjugation; for example, go, went, gone, are the principal parts of the verb go. They are the present tense, first person, singular; the past tense, first person, singular; and the past participle. When we know these three forms of any verb, we shall usually be able to conjugate the whole verb. These parts may be remembered as the three which take the places of the blanks in the following sentences:

the subject "James " is acting, and the verb "kicked " said to be in the active voice. James does the kicking. the sentence,

The football was kicked by James,

is

In

the subject "football" is acted upon, and the verb "was kicked" is said to be in the passive voice. The football receives the kicking.

If the subject of a transitive verb is acting, the verb is said to be in the active voice; if the subject is acted upon, the verb is said to be in the passive voice. An intransitive verb (for example, sit, lie), since its subject cannot be acted upon, has no passive voice. The passive voice of a verb is formed by adding the past participle to some form of the verb be.