Primary-B verb types  

Primary-B verbs can, like Primary-A, be the only verb in a sentence, with all their roles filled by NPs (e.g. John saw Mary). But they can also, unlike Primary-A, have a complement clause as alternative to an NP in one syntactic relation (e.g. John saw that Mary had won). Whereas most Primary-A verbs, when used in a literal sense, take CONCRETE NPs, many Primary-B verbs may take any type of NP in O relation, e.g. an ACTIVITY noun as in John witnessed the incident.

The sections below outline the variety of complement clauses that the various types and subtypes of Primary-B verbs take. We return to this topic later, there providing semantic explanation for the occurrences.