“The cat would certainly object,” muttered the Judge; “but I suppose that is not why it is called objective, because if the verb had been fed, cat would have been objective all the same. Well, Brother Parsing,” he continued aloud, “did Dr. Verb explain the matter clearly? Could you find out the objective in that way?”
“Certainly, my lord,” answered Serjeant Parsing, readily. “I will give you an example to prove it. ‘I ate my dinner.’ I find the nominative by asking ‘who ate?’ answer: I. I find the objective by asking ‘I ate what?’ answer: dinner; and dinner is clearly the objective, for it was the object for which I sat down to eat.”
“Must all verbs have an Objective Case after them?” asked the Judge.
“They cannot all govern the objective,” Serjeant Parsing began, when he was interrupted by a solemn voice near him, as Dr. Syntax suddenly rose and said, “Active verbs govern the Objective Case; active verbs govern the Objective Case;” and then sat down again.
“I know what he means by that,” said Dr. Verb. “Active verbs are those whose action passes on to some one or something else, as in the sentence, ‘Harry kicked the cat,’ the action of kicking passed on to the poor cat; and in ‘I ate my dinner,’ the action of eating passed on and consumed the dinner; so kick and eat are both active verbs, and govern an Objective Case.”
“Well, then,” said the Judge, “must all active verbs have an Objective Case?”
“They should have one, my lord, if you want to make the sentence complete. You must give them an object for their activity. Every active boy can do something, though it may not be Latin, and the same with every active verb. If it is an active verb you can always put some one or something after it; as to eat something, drink something, see something, love somebody.”
“And if the verb is not active?” asked the Judge.
“Then it usually has a preposition between it and the noun or pronoun after it, as, ‘I think of you.’ And the preposition gets all the honour and glory of governing the Objective Case, and gets an extra mark besides.”
“Well,” said the Judge, “you have explained it pretty clearly. I suppose I must allow you an extra mark for every verb that governs an Objective Case.”