As you may remember, there are some verbs which take 2 objects. Some of these 2 object verb chunks are invertible, and some are not invertible. This week we are going to look at 2-object verbs. Remember that with these verb chunks, some you can swap the objects and some you cannot. Do the next task and see if you can remember what you learnt about these verb chunks from previous Let’s Right English articles.
Task 1: Sort these verb chunks into the table below.
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cause s/o s/th
show s/o s/th
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cause s/th for s/o
show s/th to s/o
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non-invertible
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invertible
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Check out the language bank below, and read the comment.
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non-invertible
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invertible
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-
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cause s/o s/th
cause s/th for s/o
show s/o s/th
show s/th to s/o
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*I hope you were able to see that there are no non-invertible verbs.
*Remember that with invertible verbs, when you invert the two objects, you need also to add a preposition.
*When ‘show’ has two objects, it’s always a personal meaning.
Let’s do some work on these 2-object verbs.
Task 2:Convert these sentences by swapping the two objects around.
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1
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You could try taking it to the sales department and showing it to them.
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You could try taking it to the sales department and showing them the problem.
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2
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Did you know he would cause us all this trouble?
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3
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Do you remember last week I showed you my new software program?
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4
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I would like you to show the assembly line to me.
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5
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Maybe it caused a problem for the computer to read the CD.
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6
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I don’t want my trip to Beijing to cause them a delay.
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*2016/01/29更新
Here are the answers from the previous task.
Compare your sentences with mine below.
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1
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You could try taking it to the sales department and showing it to them.
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You could try taking it to the sales department and showing them the problem.
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2
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Did you know he would cause us all this trouble?
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Did you know he would cause all this trouble for us?
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3
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Do you remember last week I showed you my new software program?
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Do you remember last week I showed my new software program to you
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4
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I would like you to show the assembly line to me.
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I would like you to show me the assembly line.
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5
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Maybe it caused a problem for the computer to read the CD.
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Maybe it caused the computer a problem to read the CD.
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6
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I don’t want my trip to Beijing to cause them a delay.
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I don’t want my trip to Beijing to cause a delay for them.
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* Notice that when you use ‘show s/o s/th’, the ‘s/th’ cannot be ‘it’. Use a noun phrase. For example: ‘You could try taking it to the sales department and showing them the problem’ is ok, while ‘You could try taking it to the sales department and showing them it’ is very strange.
