Verbs
Verbs
A. INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS
In this section, we will study about verbs which are very useful in spoken and written
English. In addition, a verb is one of the main parts of a sentence or question in English because
we can’t have a sentence or a question without a verb. English verbs are not all the same
common things so students have to pay close attention especially to the types of verbs and verb
tenses. It is hoped that students understand how:
1.1 To identify the types of verbs.
1.2 To apply verb tenses in any situations.
B. MATERIAL DESCRIPTION
1. Verbs Definition
Verbs are used to indicate the actions, processes, conditions, or states of beings of people or
things. Verbs play an integral role to the structure of a sentence. They constitute the root of the
predicate, which, along with the subject (the “doer” of the verb’s action), forms a full clause or
sentence—we cannot have a sentence without a verb.
When we discuss verbs’ role in the predicate, we usually divide them into two fundamental
categories: finite and non-finite verbs.
Finite and Non-Finite Verbs
The predicate requires at least one finite verb to be considered complete. A finite verb has
a direct relationship to the subject of a sentence or clause, and does not require another verb in
the sentence in order to be grammatically correct. For example:
• “I swim every day.”
• “She reads many books.”
• “He talked for several hours.”
Each of the above is a finite verb, expressing an action that is directly related to the subject
of the sentence. Non-finite verbs, on the other hand, do not express that relationship directly.
The only verbs that can be considered finite are those in their base form (the infinitive form
without the particle to), their past tense form, or their third- person singular form. Verb forms
that are never considered finite are gerunds, infinitives, and participles (both past and present).
Let’s look at an example containing both a finite and non-finite verb:
• “We are learning about the American Revolution in school.”
This sentence uses the present continuous verb are learning. This functions as a single unit, with
learning expressing most of the meaning.
However, learning is a present participle, which is considered a non-finite verb; the
finite verb of the sentence is actually just the auxiliary verb are. It is an inflection of the verb be
used for a first person plural subject (we).
We can see the difference if we use each verb in isolation with the subject:
• “We are”
• “We learning”
We can see that the first verb is finite because it expresses a direct relationship with the subject,
and it can go on to form any number of complete sentences. For example:
✔ “We are tired.”
Irregular verbs, on the other hand, have past tense and past participle forms that do not
(or do not seem to) adhere to a distinct or predictable pattern, and they are usually
completely different from one another.
Unfortunately, this means that there is generally no way of determining how to
conjugate irregular verbs—we just have to learn each one individually. There aremany
irregular verbs, but here are a few common ones:
“I see the horizon.” “I saw the horizon.” “I had seen the horizon.”
“I grow bigger every “I grew bigger every “I had grown bigger every
day.” day.” day.”
“I give to charity.” “I gave to charity.” “I had given to charity.”
“I sing on Tuesday.”“I “I sang on Tuesday.”“I “I had sung on Tuesday.”“I
swim often.” swam often.” had swum often.”
“I drive to work.” “I drove to work.” “I had driven to work.”
Uniquely, the verb be is considered highly irregular, having three different present tense
forms (is, am, are) and two past tense forms (was, were), in addition to its base form and its past
and present participles (been, being).
Infinitives
Infinitives are the most basic construction of a verb. When we talk of a verb as a general concept,
we usually use the infinitive form, which is the uninflected base form of the verb plus the particle
to. For instance:
to run to walk to read to be
to learn to act
Infinitives can be used as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs in a sentence, but they do not actually
function as verbs—they are used to express an action as a concept, rather than what is being
done or performed by the subject of a clause. For example:
• “I love to run.” (functions as a noun)
• “I wish I had something to do.” (functions as an adjective)
• “I run a lot to stay healthy.” (functions as an adverb)
Participles
Participles are forms of verbs that either function with auxiliary verbs to create the
continuous and perfect verb tenses, or as adjectives to modify nouns. Every verb (except the
modal auxiliary verbs) has two participle forms: a present participle and a past participle.
The present participle is always the base form of the verb + “-ing.” Although the spelling
of some verbs changes very slightly to accommodate this suffix, every verb takes “-ing” for the
present participle.
We use present participles with the auxiliary be to form continuous tenses, as in:
• “Can’t you see that I am reading?” (present continuous tense)
• “I was watching that.” (past continuous tense)
• “They will be arriving soon.” (future continuous tense)
The past participle is usually the same as a verb’s simple past tense form, which is made
by adding “-d” or “-ed” to the end of the verb. However, many verbs are irregular, meaning they
do not follow this spelling pattern, and they have different past tense and past participle forms.
(We’ll look at regular and irregular verbs later on.)
The past participle is used with the auxiliary have to form the perfect tenses:
• “You have worked long enough.” (present perfect tense)
• “We had seen too much.” (past perfect tense)
• “They’ll have arrived before we get there.” (future perfect tense)
We can also use participles as adjectives to add description to nouns. Though they still relate
to action, they are not functioning as verbs when used this way. For example:
• “The mother looked down at her smiling child.”
• “I could tell by the exhausted look on his face that he needed sleep.”
3. Categories of verbs
There are many different categories of verbs that describe different kinds of actions or states of
being.
Action (Dynamic) Verbs
Action verbs (also known as dynamic verbs) describe an active process that results in an effect.
For example:
• “I ran to school.”
• “She read a book.”
• “They talked during lunch.”
• “We swam for over an hour.”
Stative Verbs
In contrast to action verbs, stative verbs describe states of being of a subject. These include
linking verbs, such as be and verbs of the senses, which are used to describe or rename a subject
using a predicative adjective or noun. For example:
• “I am hungry.”
• “You sound tired.”
• “He seems like a bully.”
Other stative verbs are those that express emotions, possession, cognition, and states or qualities.
For example:
• “She likes old movies.”
• “They own three cars.”
• “I understand the issue.”
• “Your happiness depends on doing something you enjoy.”
Light Verbs
Light verbs do not carry unique meaning on their own, but instead rely on another word or words
that follow them to become meaningful. Common examples include do, have, and take, as in:
• “Do your homework!”
• “Why don’t we have something to eat?”
• “I took a shower before breakfast.”
In many cases, the same light verb will have different meanings, depending on the word or words
it is paired with. For instance:
• “Please don’t make a mess.”
• “Please make your bed.”
Phrasal Verbs
Phrasal verbs are verbs that pair with prepositions or particles to create unique, specific
meanings. These are largely idiomatic, which means that they don’t make literal sense according
to their individual parts. For example:
• “I can’t believe that you’re giving up!”
• “The plane took off an hour late.”
• “He has been looking after his mother.”
• “Stop picking on your brother!”
Conditional Verbs
The term conditional verbs refers to verb constructions that are used in conditional sentences,
which describe a hypothetical outcome that is reliant upon another conditional situation being
true. These sentences most often use the conjunction if with one of the verbs to express the
conditional situation, and often use modal auxiliary verbs to describe the hypothetical outcome.
For example:
• “The leaves will fall if the wind blows.”
• “If you had done your chores, you could have had an ice cream cone.”
• “You would get better grades if you studied harder.”
Causative Verbs
Causative verbs are used to indicate that a person or thing is causing another action or an event
to happen. They are generally followed by a noun or pronouns and an infinitive verb that is not
causative, which describes the action that was caused to happen. For example:
• “He let his dog run through the field.”
• “The bigger house enabled the family to have more room for their belongings.”
• “The new dress code forced the students to wear different shoes.”
• “The law requires a person to obtain a permit before hunting on public land.”
Factitive Verbs
Factitive verbs are used to indicate a condition or state of a person, place, or thing that results
from the action of the verb. For example:
• “She was appointed commissioner by the mayor.”
• “The committee elected Mr. Fuller chairman of the board.”
• “The jury judged the defendant not guilty.”
Reflexive Verbs
Reflexive verbs have subjects that are also their direct objects—that is, the action of the verb is
both committed and received by the same person or thing. The objects of transitive reflexive
verbs are usually reflexive pronouns. For example:
• “I accidentally burned myself with the hairdryer.”
• “The problem seems to have worked itself out in the end.”
• “This car doesn’t drive properly anymore.” (intransitive—no direct object)
Conjugation
When we discuss verbs, we usually must touch upon conjugation. This is the inflection
(changing of form) of verbs to create new meaning in specific contexts. We generally refer to
tense (which we looked at briefly above) when we talk about conjugation, but verbs experience
a large amount of inflection depending on how they are being used in a sentence. For more
information, go to the chapter on Conjugation in the part of this guide called Inflection
(Accidence).
Past Participles
Past participles of verbs are used to create non-continuous perfect verb tenses ( past
perfect, present perfect, and future perfect), or else function as adjectives modifying nouns
(again, either attributively or predicatively). They are also used when forming the passive voice.
It is important to note that non-finite past participles and finite past tense verbs often both
end in “-d” or “-ed.” If the word directly describes the action of a subject, then it is a finite verb.
However, if the word is being used as an adjective or requires another verb to be complete, then
it is a non-finite verb.
• “I had already walked for many miles.” (Walked is a past participle that depends on the
auxiliary verb have to create the past perfect tense.)
• “Those clothes are washed.” (Washed is a past participle acting as an predicative
adjective to the noun clothes, following the finite linking verb are.)
• “She carried the washed clothes upstairs.” (Carried is a past tense verb describing the
action of the subject, she; washed is a past participle acting as an attributive adjective to
the noun clothes.)
Intransitive Verbs
An intransitive verb, on the other hand, describes an action that does not happen to something
or someone. For example, in the sentence “I arrived late,” arrived is describing an action, but
there is nothing and no one for that action to happen to—the action is complete on its own. The
verb is intransitive if we cannot answer the question “Who or what did the action of the verb
happen to?”
Examples
• “I can’t believe our dog ran away.” (What did the dog run away? Nothing, there is no
object receiving the action of ran away.)
• “There was a lot of dust in the air, which made me sneeze.” (What did I
sneeze? Nothing, there is no object receiving the action of sneeze.)
• “Don’t be too loud while the baby sleeps.” (What did the baby sleep? Nothing, there
is no object receiving the action of sleeps.)
Intransitive verbs with prepositional phrases
When intransitive verbs are modified by prepositional phrases, they can often look like they are
transitive because the preposition has its own object; however, this is not the case. Take, for
example, the following sentences:
• “I can’t believe our dog ran away from home.”
• “I sneezed from the dust.”
• “The baby is sleeping in our room.”
It may seem like home, dust and our room are all objects of the verbs in these sentences, but
they’re actually objects of the prepositions, which together form prepositional phrases that
modify the verbs. The verbs remain intransitive, regardless of the objects in prepositional
phrases.
Mnemonic device
One way to remember the difference between the two is to think about their names:
Transitive verbs transition or transfer an action to a person or thing that receives it.
In- means not in this case, so intransitive verbs do not transition/transfer an action to a person or
thing that receives it.
“Ambitransitive Verbs”
Some action verbs can be both transitive and intransitive, depending on the context of the
sentence or what information the speaker wishes to include. These are sometimes known as
ambitransitive or ergative verbs.
For example:
• “She eats before going to work.” (Intransitive—no direct object receiving the action of
the verb eats.)
• “She eats breakfast before going to work.” (Transitive—has a direct object (breakfast)
receiving the action of the verb eats.)
Here are some other examples of verbs that function both transitively and intransitively.
• “I’ve been trying to read more.” (intransitive)
• “I’ve been trying to read more novels.” (transitive)
• “I’m still cooking, so I’m going to be a little late.” (intransitive)
• “I’m still cooking dinner, so I’m going to be a little late.” (transitive)
• “I’ve been exercising every day this month.” (intransitive)
• “I’ve been exercising my arms every day this month.” (transitive)
Monotransitive Verbs
A verb that acts upon a single object in a sentence is referred to as monotransitive (mono
meaning one). This single object is called its direct object. All of the examples we’ve seen so
far have been monotransitive verbs; here’s a few more:
• “I rode my bike to get here.”
• “Jim just told a funny joke.”
• “I’m making lasagna for dinner.”
• “I heard she’s writing a novel.”
Ditransitive Verbs
There are some verbs in English that take two objects: a direct object and an indirect object.
These are known as ditransitive verbs. The direct object relates to the person or thing that directly
receives the action of the verb, while the indirect object relates to the person or thing that
indirectly receives or benefits from the action as a result.
The indirect object in a ditransitive verb can either come immediately before the direct object in
a sentence, or it can form the object of a prepositional phrase using to or for that follows and
modifies the direct object.
For example:
• “He gave Mary a pen.” (The indirect object, Mary immediately follows the direct
object, pen.)
or
• “He gave a pen to Mary.” (The indirect object, Mary, forms the object of the
prepositional phrase to Mary, which follows and modifies the direct object, pen.)
Here are some other examples:
• “She teaches the students mathematics.”
• “She teaches mathematics to the students.”
• “I sent my brother a letter.”
• “I sent a letter to my brother.”
• “My father baked our class a batch of cupcakes.”
• “My father baked a batch of cupcakes for our class.”
Factitive Verbs
Factitive verbs are or appear to be ditransitive as well. Instead of having a direct object that
impacts on an indirect object, factitive verbs describe a status, category, quality, or result that
the direct object is becoming due to the action of the verb. This secondary element can be either
an object or object complement of the verb. For example:
• “The American people elected her the president of the United States.”
• “He was appointed Supreme Court justice.”
• “The committee selected Mrs. Fuller chairman of the board.”
• “The group designated Marshall the leader from then on.”
• “The coach made Linda point guard.”
• “We painted the ceiling white.”
See the section on factitive verbs to learn more.
“Tritransitive” verbs
An unofficial third type of transitive verb is what’s sometimes known as a tritransitive verb,
meaning that it takes three objects. This third “object” is formed from a prepositional phrase or
clause that appears to receive the action of the verb by way of the indirect object. For example:
• “We will make you CEO for $300,000.”
• “I’d trade you that sandwich for an ice cream cone.”
• “I bet you 50 bucks (that) our team will win the championship.”
There is some dispute among linguists, however, as to whether these kinds of verbs truly have
three objects, or whether the third piece of information is merely considered an adjunct, as the
sentence would be grammatically sound without it.
In all of the above examples, the only alteration to the verb has been the additionof “-d” or
“-ed.” Notice, too, that the past tense and past participle forms are identical in each case—this
is a defining feature of regular verbs.
Changing spelling
In some cases, though, we have to modify the verb slightly further in order to beable to add “-d”
or “-ed.”
For instance, with verbs that end in a “short” vowel followed by a consonant, wedouble the
final consonant in addition to adding “-ed”;* when a verb ends in a consonant + “y,” we
replace the “y” with “i” and add “-ied”; and when a verb ends in “-ic,” we add the letter “k” in
addition to “-ed.”
For example:
(*Usage Note: An exception to this rule occurs for words that end in a soft vowel and the
consonant “l” (as in travel, cancel, fuel, label, etc.). In this case, we merely add “-ed” to form
the past simple and the past participle (as in traveled, canceled, fueled, labeled, etc.)—we do not
double the consonant. Note, however, that this exception only occurs in American English; in
other varieties of English, such as British or Australian English, the consonant is still doubled.)
See the chapter on Suffixes to learn more about how words change when we add to their endings.
Example sentences
• “I walk around the park each evening.” (base form)
• “I walked around the park in the afternoon.” (past simple tense)
• “I have walked around the park a few times this morning.” (past participle)
• “I’m going to chop some vegetables for the salad.” (base form)
• “He chopped some vegetables for the salad before dinner.” (past simple tense)
• “He had already chopped some vegetables for the salad.” (past participle)
• “Don’t copy other students’ answers or you will get an F.” (base form)
• “I think he copied my answers.” (past simple tense)
• “The only answers he got right were the ones he had copied.” (past participle)
• “Your father’s fine, don’t panic!” (base form)
• “I panicked when I heard he was in the hospital.” (past simple tense)
• “I wish hadn’t panicked like that.” (past participle)
Irregular verbs
Irregular verbs, by their very definition, do not have spelling rules that we can follow to create
the past simple tense and past participles. This means that the only way of knowing how to spell
these forms is to memorize them for each irregular verb individually. Below are just a few
examples of some common irregular verbs.
be was/were been
see Saw seen
grow Grew grown
give Gave given
think Thought thought
throw Threw thrown
drive Drove driven
ride Rode ridden
run Ran run
swim Swam swum
sit Sat sat
As you can see, irregular verbs can have endings that are dramatically differentfrom their
base forms; often, their past simple tense and past participles forms are completely different,
too. Again, the only way to learn these variations is to memorize them.
Examples
Let’s look at some sentences that use irregular verbs in their various forms:
• “I am excited that college is starting.” (base form)
• “I was sad to leave home, though.” (past simple tense)
• “I have been making a lot of new friends already.” (past participle)
• “I drive to work every morning.” (base form)
• “I drove for nearly an hour yesterday.” (past simple tense)
• “I had already driven halfway to the office when I realized I forgot mybriefcase.”
(past participle)
• “I would love to grow vegetables in my garden.” (base form)
• “I grew some juicy tomatoes last summer.” (past simple tense)
• “He has grown a lot of different vegetables already.” (past participle)
• “I think I would like to get a dog.” (base form)
• “She thought a dog would provide some good company.” (past simple tense)
• “She hadn’t thought about how much work they are.” (past participle)
Conjugating present tense and the present participle
Although there are stark differences between regular and irregular verbs when itcomes to
conjugating their past simple tense and past participles, both kinds of verbs do follow the same
conventions when creating present participles and present tense in the third person singular
(the other two elements of verb conjugation).
For example:
Regular verb
Past
Regular Past Third Person Singular Present
Simple
Verb Participle Present Tense Participle
Tense
Irregular Verb
Past
Irregular Past Third Person Singular Present
Simple
Verb Participle Present Tense Participle
Tense
ride rode Ridden Rides Riding
The exception to this is the verb be, which conjugates the present tense irregularly for first,
second, and third person, as well as for singular and plural:
Past SimpleTense Past Present Present
Verb
Participle Tense Participle