I agree with Bob about the sentence patterns. I think they can be
particularly confusing, since the same verb can appear sometimes
transitively, sometimes not.

Maybe it has something to do with our training as linguists, where verb
complementation is a hot topic, and sentence patterns invoke ideas of transformations.

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Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-259
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
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