Linking verbs also are non-action, and a lot of them use the “to be” verb. However, in Linking verb sentences, along with that form of “to be,” there is complement or completer, which is a noun, pronoun, or adjective that either renames or gives further description of the subject.

A Complement (or Completer) is a noun, pronoun, or adjective that renames or gives further information about the subject. Every Linking verb sentence must have a Completer.

Ex. Joe is an excellent runner.

In the example, notice runner gives us more information about Joe (the subject). Runner is a noun (the completer); is serves as a link between Joe and runner. Therefore, this is a Linking verb sentence.

Let’s take our example sentence from the State-of-Being verb section to show how a Linking verb sentence may have only a slight change to make the difference between State-of-Being and Linking.

Ex. Last weekend, Sue and Leon should have been keynote speakers in Chicago at a marriage conference.

Here, inserting “keynote speakers” after the verb (“should have been”) gives further information about Sue and Leon (the subjects in the sentence), thus changing the State-of-Being sentence to Linking.

Exercise 8: 

As stated before, every sentence must have a subject and a verb. The subject is who or what the sentence is about, and it is a noun or a pronoun. In the following sentences, underline the subjects once and non-action verbs twice, and then indicate what type of verb is used. For State-of-Being, mark SOB; for Linking mark L.

1. All day Alicia was in her office.
2. Julius’s laptop should have been in his backpack.
3. We were exhausted from the long run.
4. At the end of the day, they were tired and disagreeable.
5. Ironman could have been there at a moment’s notice.
6. Darren and Alexis weren’t at the library.
7. That winner was you!
8. Our cat was content on our front porch.
9. You should never be in a rush!
10. The paper wasn’t in on time!