It is modal when the noun which follows the verb is not the name of any object affected by the verb, but the name of some object explaining the manner in which the action of the verb takes place, the instrument with which it is done, the end for which it is done, &c.
The government of all transitive verbs is necessarily objective. It may also be modal,—I strike the enemy with the sword=ferio hostem gladio.
The government of all intransitive verbs can only be modal,—I walk with the stick. When we say, I walk the horse, the word walk has changed its meaning, and signifies make to walk, and is, by the very fact of its being followed by the name of an object, converted from an intransitive into a transitive verb.
The modal construction may also be called the adverbial construction; because the effect of the noun is akin to that of an adverb,—I fight with bravery=I fight bravely: he walks a king=he walks regally. The modal (or adverbial) construction (or government) sometimes takes the appearance of the objective: inasmuch as intransitive verbs are frequently followed by a substantive; which substantive is in the objective case. Nevertheless, this is no proof of government. For a verb to be capable of governing an objective case, it must be a verb signifying an action affecting an object: and
if there be no such object, there is no room for any objective government. To break the sleep of the righteous, is to affect, by breaking, the sleep of the righteous: but, to sleep the sleep of the righteous, is not to affect by sleeping the sleep of the righteous; since the act of sleeping is an act that affects no object whatever. It is a state. We may, indeed, give it the appearance of a transitive verb, as we do when we say, the opiate slept the patient, meaning thereby, lulled to sleep; but the transitive character is only apparent.
To sleep the sleep of the righteous is to sleep in agreement with—or according to—or after the manner of—the sleep of the righteous, and the construction is adverbial.
In the grammars of the classical languages, the following rule is exceptionable—Quodvis verbum admittit accusativum nominis sibi cognati. It does so; but it governs the accusative case not objectively but modally.
[§ 559]. Modal verbs may be divided into a multiplicity of divisions. Of such, it is not necessary in English to give more than the following four:—
1. Appositional.—As, she walks a queen: you consider me safe. The appositional construction is, in reality, a matter of concord rather than of gender. It will be considered more fully in the following section.
2. Traditive.—As, I give the book to you=do librum tibi. I teach you the lesson=διδάσκω σὲ τὴν διδασκάλιαν. In all traditive expressions there are three ideas; (1.) an agent, (2.) an object, (3.) a person, or thing, to which the object is made over, or transferred, by the agent. For this idea the term dative is too restricted: since in Greek and some other languages, both the name of the object conveyed, and the name of the person to whom it is conveyed are, frequently, put in the accusative case.