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What is a verb? What are the different types of verbs? What are some of the examples? What is a verb? A verb is a word that expresses an action, a happening, a process or a state. It is one of the parts of speech. It is a word which expresses any one of the following concepts: doing, being or having. Verbs are a necessary component of all sentences. Verbs have two important functions: Some verbs put static objects into motion while other verbs help to clarify the objects in meaningful ways. The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence. A verb or compound verb asserts something about the subject of the sentence and express actions, events, or states of being. The verb or compound verb is the critical element of the predicate of a sentence. One such important job is to show the state of completion of an action. This is the area of perfect tenses which we will see when we learn about tenses. 'To have' puts on four different type of costumes: has, have, had, and having. What are the different types of verbs? What are some of the examples? Verb Classification Quiz Helping Main Transitive Intransitive Regular Irregular Linking Dynamic Stative Active 1 The grocery clerk (will) carry your bags out for you. Helping 2 The mail (arrived) after I left. Transitive 3 I have already (done) my homework. Irregular 4 That book you recommended (sounds) interesting. Linking 5 I (prefer) cream rather than milk. Stative 6 Jerry (studies) for three hours every day. Main 7 We (looked) at all of the art in the museum. Regular 8 Would you (take) a picture for us? Transitive 9 I don't want to (fight) about who gets the car. Dynamic 10 She (seemed) like an interesting person. Stative We divide verbs into two broad classifications: 1. Helping Verbs Imagine that a stranger walks into your room and says: I can. People must. The Earth will. Do you understand anything? Has this person communicated anything to you? Probably not! That's because these verbs are helping verbs and have no meaning on their own. They are necessary for the grammatical structure of the sentence, but they do not tell us very much alone. We usually use helping verbs with main verbs. They "help" the main verb. (The sentences in the above examples are therefore incomplete. They need at least a main verb to complete them.) There are only about 15 helping verbs. 2. Main Verbs Now imagine that the same stranger walks into your room and says: I teach. People eat. The Earth rotates. Do you understand something? Has this person communicated something to you? Probably yes! Not a lot, but something. That's because these verbs are main verbs and have meaning on their own. They tell us something. Of course, there are thousands of main verbs. In the following table we see example sentences with helping verbs and main verbs. Notice that all of these sentences have a main verb. Only some of them have a helping verb. There are thousands of main verbs, and we can classify them in several ways: Transitive and intransitive verbs A transitive verb takes a direct object: Somebody killed the President. An intransitive verb does not have a direct object: He died. Many verbs, like speak, can be transitive or intransitive. Look at these examples: transitive: * I saw an elephant. * We are watching TV. * He speaks English. intransitive: * He has arrived. * John goes to school. * She speaks fast. Linking verbs A linking verb does not have much meaning in itself. It "links" the subject to what is said about the subject. Usually, a linking verb shows equality (=) or a change to a different state or place (>). Linking verbs are always intransitive (but not all intransitive verbs are linking verbs). * Mary is a teacher. (mary = teacher) * Tara is beautiful. (tara = beautiful) * That sounds interesting. (that = interesting) * The sky became dark. (the sky > dark) * The bread has gone bad. (bread > bad) Dynamic and stative verbs Some verbs describe action. They are called "dynamic", and can be used with continuous tenses. Other verbs describe state (non-action, a situation). They are called "stative", and cannot normally be used with continuous tenses (though some of them can be used with continuous tenses with a change in meaning). dynamic verbs (examples): * hit, explode, fight, run, go stative verbs (examples): * be * like, love, prefer, wish * impress, please, surprise * hear, see, sound * belong to, consist of, contain, include, need * appear, resemble, seem Regular and irregular verbs This is more a question of vocabulary than of grammar. The only real difference between regular and irregular verbs is that they have different endings for their past tense and past participle forms. For regular verbs, the past tense ending and past participle ending is always the same: -ed. For irregular verbs, the past tense ending and the past participle ending is variable, so it is necessary to learn them by heart. regular verbs: base, past tense, past participle * look, looked, looked * work, worked, worked irregular verbs: base, past tense, past participle * buy, bought, bought * cut, cut, cut * do, did, done What Should We Know About Verbs? Six different things can work on these words and influence their shapes and functions (work). They are: tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, and number. We can learn about them in these topics. * Types (according to any of these three ways: meaning, morphology, or syntax) * Agreement with the subject. * Tense and Aspect. * Voice * Mood * Auxiliaries (including Modals) * Linking * Sequence of Tenses |