VERBS

 

VERBS

Definition

Verbs are the most important words in a sentence. Most verbs are action words, but a few verbs indicate state of being or existence. Action verbs are the most common verbs.

Examples: My uncle is a pilot.

The cake looks good.

You seem upset.

The verbs in the sentences are is, looks, and seem. These verbs are state of being or linking verbs. Some common linking verbs are is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been, seem, look, feel, and become. They do not show action. They just show that something exists.

Some verbs like appear can be either action or linking verbs. It depends on whether it shows action or not. Appears above is like saying seems which shows no action while appeared above shows the action of the image.

Sometimes a verb can be more than one word. When a verb is more than one word, it is called a verb phrase. Verb phrases can be two, three, or four words. Using auxiliary or helping verbs makes verb phrases.

These sentences all have auxiliary or helping verbs. They are usually grouped in the following five groups:

1.       Is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been

2.       Has, have, had

3.       Do, does, did

4.       Shall, will, should would

5.       May,   might, must, can, could

Some of the helping verbs can be used alone as the main verb. Is, am, are, was, and were can be used alone as linking or state of being verbs. Has, have, had, do, does, and did always show action when used alone. Be, being, and been can be used with other verbs either to show action or state of being. The other helping verbs cannot be used alone but only as helping verbs.

A Helping verb may be connected with another word in a contracted form.

Classification

1.      Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

Transitive verbs are verbs that have subjects or objects that receive the action. They are either active voice or passive voice. Transitive active verbs are the verbs in sentences with a direct object.

Example:

The boy kicked the ball. The subject is the doer and the direct object is the receiver of the action. Transitive passive verbs have the subject receiving the action with the doer in a prepositional phrase or omitted in the sentence.

Examples:

The ball was kicked by the boy. The ball was kicked hard. The verb in the transitive passive voice always has is, am, are, was, were, be, being, or been as an auxiliary or helping verb.

Intransitive verbs have no receiver of the action. They are classified as intransitive complete or intransitive linking. Intransitive linking are sentences with a predicate nominative or predicate adjective.

Examples:

The girl is Mona. (predicate nominative) The girl is cute. (predicate adjective) Intransitive complete are all the verbs that don’t fit one of the other kinds of transitive or intransitive verbs.

Examples:1. The bell rang suddenly. The girl read al evening. (There is no receiver of the action.)

2. They were here. (no action or predicate nominative or predicate adjective.)

2.Linking Verbs and Action verbs:

Action verbs: Action verbs are verbs that show the performance of an action. They are dynamic verbs that show something is or was happening. There are regular and irregular action verbs.

(I)                  Regular action verbs: Regular verbs are those verbs that can be conjugated easily to learn rules. For example, past tense of look is looked. We may simply transform a regular verb from its present tense form to past tense form by adding ‘ed’ at the end. Similarly, we may add an-ing and make a present continuous tense (looking).

                     Other examples of regular verbs are add, love, need, use, behave etc.

(II)                 Irregular action verbs: Irregular verbs have no rules for conjugation. For example, the past tense of the verb run is ran. Similarly, the past tense for bite is bit.

Some of the irregular verbs and their conjugation are given in the list below.

1.       Arise, arose, arisen

2.       Awake, awoke, awoken

3.       Be/am/is/ are, was/were, been

4.       Beat, beat, beaten/beat

5.        Become, became, become

6.       Begin, began, begun

7.       Bend, bent, bent

8.       Bind, bound, bound

9.       bite, bit, bitten

10.   bleed, bled, bled

11.   blow, blew, blown

12.   Break, broke, broken

13.   bring, brought, brought

14.   burn, burned/burnt, burned/burnt

15.    Buy, bought, bought

16.   Choose, chose, chosen

17.    Cut, cut, cut

18.   Deal, dealt, dealt

19.   Dig, dug, dug

20.   Do, did, done

21.   Dream, dreamt/dreamed, dreamt/dreamed

22.   Eat, ate, eaten

23.   Fall, fell, fallen

24.   Feed, fed, fed

25.   Feel, felt, felt

26.   Fight, fought, fought

27.   Find, found, found

28.    Get, got, gotten/got

29.    Go, went, gone have, had, had

30.   Have, had, had

31.   Lie, lay, lain

32.   Lay, laid, lay

Linking verbs:

A linking verb connects a subject and its complement (complement is any word or phrase that completes the sense of a subject, an object, or a verb). Linking verbs are often forms of the verb to be, but are sometimes verbs related to the five senses (look, sound, smell, feel, taste) and sometimes verbs that somehow reflect a state of being (appear, seem, become, grow, turn, prove, remain).

The linking verb will be either followed by a noun complement or an adjective complement: Examples:

Those students are brilliant.

This room smells bad.

Today I feel great.

A victory today seems unlikely.

Verbals

A verbal is a verb form used as some other part of speech. There are three kinds of verbals: gerunds, participles and infinitives. A gerund always ends in ‘ing’ and is used as a noun. Example: Eating is fun.

A participle is used as an adjective and end in various ways. A present participle always ends with ing as does the gerund, but remember that it is an adjective. A past participle ends with ed, n, or irregularly.

Examples: played, broken, brought, sung, seeing, having seen, being seen, seen, having been seen.

An infinitive is ‘to’ plus a ‘verb’ form. It can be a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. Examples: to be, to see, to be seen, to be eaten.

Gerunds

A gerund always ends in ing and is used as a noun. E.g. Eating is fun.

The gerund can be a subject (Eating is fun.); a direct object (I like eating.); a predicate nominative (A fun time is eating.); an appositive (A fun time, eating, takes much time.); an indirect object (I give eating too much time.); or an object of a preposition (I give much time to eating.)

Noun Infinitives

The noun infinitive can be a subject (To eat is fun.); a direct object (I like to eat.); a predicate nominative (A fun thing is to eat.); an appositive (My hope, to travel, never happened.); an object of a preposition (I want nothing but to save.)

Noun infinitives can have with them direct objects, predicate nominatives, predicate adjectives or modifiers to form what is called a infinitive phrase. Example: To eat solid foods is hard for babies. “To eat” is the noun infinitive used as the subject of the verb is, and it has its own direct object “foods” with the adjective “solid,” which together make up the infinitive phrase “to eat solid foods” serving as the subject of the sentence.

Participles

A participle is used as an adjective and ends in various ways. A present participle always ends with ing as does the gerund, but remember that it is an adjective. A past participle ends with ed, n, or irregularly. Examples: played, broken, brought, sung, seeing, having seen, being seen, seen, having been seen. Participles modify nouns and pronouns and can precede or follow the word modified. (Do not confuse participles that end in ing with gerunds. Participles are used as adjectives; gerunds are used as nouns.)

What are Modal Verbs?

English is a versatile language, and there is a word for everything. There is nothing which needs too many words to describe it accurately – normally one word will do.

Be verbs, Helping verbs or auxiliary verbs such as will, shall, may, might, can, could, must, ought to, should, would, used to, need are used in conjunction with main verbs to express shades of time and mood. The combination of helping verbs with main verbs creates what are called verb phrases or verb strings. As of next August, I will have been studying chemistry for ten years. These do not change form for different subjects.

Reference by Usage

FUNCTION	MODAL (s)
Ability	Can Could
Possibility	Could May Might
Probability	Must Must not
Permission	May can could
Advisablility	Had better Ought to Should
Necessity	Have got to Have to Must
Lack of necessity and prohibition	Do not have to   Must not
Requesting	Can Could Will Would
Making conclusions	Must
Giving instructions	Simple form of a verb
Making suggestions	Let’s Why don’t
Showing preferences	Like… better than… Prefer Would rather

 

Usage of Shall and Will:

The use of shall and will has changed over time. Earlier shall was used in the future tenses for first person and will in all other person. These days, however, I will is very common and is not considered incorrect. In expressing the future either will or shall can be used.

There are a few situations where only one of them is appropriate:

1.Shall

·        Shall can be used in the second and third person to express a command, promise, or threat.

e.g. You shall have a holiday tomorrow.(promise)

               You shall pay for what you did to me (threat)

 

·        Questions with shall I shall we are used to ask the opinion/will of the person addressed.

e.g. Shall we start for home?

2.Will

·        Will is used to express volition

e.g. I will (am determined to) be on time tomorrow.

·        Will is also used to express a characteristic habit.

e.g. She will talk about nothing else.