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He was forty and in his prime.
We are seven.
2. The identity of the person or non-person, that is, what class of persons or things they belong to.
This man is my father.
Old Mr Clare was a clergyman.
Miss Sedley’s papa was a man of some wealth.
My wish is to learn many languages.
§ 55. Among the class of link verbs we may distinguish:
1. Those which have lost their original lexical meaning (to be, to get).
He is just the kind of man I want.
Elisabeth got very restless.
2. Those which have only partly lost their lexical meaning (to remain, to become, to grow, to turn, to look, to
seem).
That request seemed superfluous.
The room looked snug and cheerful.
Ellen’s eyes grew moist.
In both cases (1,2) the link verbs proper are used.
3. Those which have fully preserved their lexical meaning but still serve as link verbs followed by a
predicative. They are used in the passive voice: to elect, to call, to leave, to keep, to make.
The boy was called John.
She was left alone.
He was elected president.
According to their semantic characteristics link verbs fall into three groups: link verbs of being, of becoming,
of remaining.
l. Link verbs of being:
to be, to feel, to sound, to smell, to taste, to look, to appear, to seem, etc.
Of these only the verb to be is a pure link verb of being, as the others may have some additional meaning
(see examples below).
When he was seven, starting school had been a nightmare and a torture to him.
His face looked awful all the time.
I felt better pleased than ever.
His voice sounded cold and hostile.
He seemed bewildered.
Everything appeared very grand and imposing to me.
Note how the link verbs to taste and to feel are translated into Russian:
Lemons taste sour. - Лимоны кислые на вкус.
The fur feels soft. - Мех мягкий на ощупь.
2. Link verbs of becoming: