The majority of verbs in our language are either transitive or intransitive, according to the sense in which they are used.

         [The fire burns merrily (intransitive). 
          The fire burned the building (transitive). 
          The bird flew swiftly (intransitive). 
          The boy flew his kite (transitive).]

Some intransitive verbs take what is known as a cognate object:  [He died a noble death.] Here the object repeats the meaning of the verb.

+53.  Complete and Incomplete Verbs.+—­Some intransitive verbs make a complete assertion or statement without the aid of any other words.  Such verbs are said to be of complete predication:  [The snow melts].

All transitive verbs and some intransitive verbs require one or more words to complete the meaning of the predicate.  Such verbs are said to be incomplete.  Whatever is added to complete the meaning of the predicate is termed a complement.  The complement of a transitive verb is called the object complement, or simply the object:  [She found the book].  Some transitive verbs, from the nature of their meaning, take also an indirect object:  [I gave her the book].  When a word belonging to the subject is added to an intransitive verb in order to complete the predicate, it is termed an attribute complement.  This complement may be either a noun or an adjective:  [He is our treasurer (noun).  This rose is fragrant (adjective)].  Among the incomplete intransitive verbs the most conspicuous are the copula and the copulative verbs.

+54.  Auxiliary Verbs.+—­English verbs have so few changes of form to express differences in meaning that it is often necessary to use the so-called auxiliary verbs.  The most common are:  do, be, have, may, must, might, can, shall, will, should, would, could, and ought.  Some of these may be used as principal verbs.  A few notes and cautions are added.

Can is used to denote the ability of the subject.

May is used to denote permission, possibility, purpose, or desire.  Thus the request for permission should be, “May I?” not “Can I?”

Must indicates necessity.

Ought expresses obligation.

Had should never be used with ought.  To express a moral obligation in past time, combine ought with the perfect infinitive:  [I ought to have done it].

Should sometimes expresses duty:  [You should not go].

Would sometimes denotes a custom:  [He would sit there for hours].  Sometimes it expresses a wish:  [Would he were here!].  For other uses of should and would, see Appendix 60.

+55.  Principal Parts.+—­The main forms of the verb—­so important as to be called the principal parts because the other parts are formed from them—­ are the root infinitive, the preterite (past) indicative, and the past participle [move, moved, moved; sing, sang, sung; be, was, been].  The present participle is sometimes given with the principal parts.