Foreign Languages Teacher Training Faculty

Theory and Practice of Intercultural Communication Department

Lecture 6: The Verb. The Inherent Categories

of the English Verb. The Parsing of the Verb.

Senior lecturer: Pentina Y.O.

1.Describe the main features of Verbs and give examples.
2.Analyze the classifications of Verbs and provide examples.
3. Identify differences between Notional and Functional Verbs and give examples. How
can you incorporate their implementation into FLT?
4. Dwell on this point: «I spent 20 years doing research on regular and irregular verbs,
not because I'm an obsessive language lover but because it seemed to me that they tapped
into a fundamental distinction in language processing, indeed in cognitive processing,
between memory lookup and rule-driven computation». Steven Pinker
Express your own opinion, give examples and recommendations of learning
Irregular Verbs.
5.Analyze the explanation of Transitive and Intransitive Verbs from the following
resource https://www.careerpower.in/transitive-and-intransitive-verbs.html and explain
how to identify them in the sentences by providing examples.
 Warming-up questions
1. What is the main function / role of the Verb?
2. Can you name the types of verbs?
3. Underline the auxiliary verbs and circle the main verbs in the given sentences:
 They are training hard for the championship.
 Rachel has joined the academy near his house.
 Sports Day is held every year in our school.
 They have been waiting for the guests to arrive.
 I am not interested in what she has to say.
 Aren't you going to attend the lecture?​
1. They are training hard for the championship.
Auxiliary verb: are
Main verb: training
2. Rachel has joined the academy near his house.
Auxiliary verb: has
Main verb: joined
3. Sports Day is held every year in our school.
Auxiliary verb: is
Main verb: held
4. They have been waiting for the guests to arrive.
Auxiliary verb: have, been
Main verb: waiting, arrive
5. I am not interested in what she has to say.
Auxiliary verb: am, has
Main verb: interested, say
6. Aren't you going to attend the lecture?
Auxiliary verb: Aren't, going
Main verb: attend
 The characteristics of Verbs
Words like to read, to live, to go, to jump are called verbs because of their
following features:
1. They express the meanings of action and state;
2. They have the grammatical categories of person, number,
tense, aspect, voice, mood, order and posteriority most of
which have their own grammatical means;
3. The function of verbs entirely depends on their forms: if
they in finite form they fulfill only one function – predicate. But
if they are in non-finite form then they can fulfill any function
in the sentence but predicate; they may be part of the
predicate;
4. Verbs can combine actually with all the parts of speech,
though they do not combine with articles, with some
pronouns. It is important to note that the combinability of
verbs mostly depends on the syntactical function of verbs in
speech;
5. Verbs have their own stem-building elements. They are:
postfixes: -fy (simplify, magnify, identify…) -ize (realize, fertilize,
standardize…) -ate (activate, captivate…)
prefixes: re- (rewrite, restart, replant…) mis- (misuse,
misunderstand, misstate…) un- (uncover, uncouple, uncrown…)
de- (depose, depress, derange…) and etc.
 The Types of Verbs
The classification of verbs can be undertaken from the
following points of view:
1) meaning;
2) form - formation;
3) function.
I. There are three basic forms of the verb in English: infinitive, past
indefinite and PII (Past Participle).
These forms are kept in mind in classifying verbs.
II. There are four types of form-formation:
1. Affixation: reads, asked, going ...
2. Variation of sounds: run – ran, may – might, bring – brought ...
3. Suppletive ways: be – is – am – are – was; go – went ...
4. Analytical means: shall come, have asked, is helped ...
5. There are productive and non-productive ways of word-
formation in present-day English verbs. Affixation is productive,
while variation of sounds and suppletion are non-productive.
 Notional and Functional Verbs
From the point of view of their meaning verbs fall under two
groups: notional and functional.
•Notional verbs have full lexical meaning of their own. The
majority of verbs fall under this group.
•Functional verbs differ from notional ones of lacking lexical
meaning of their own. They cannot be used independently in
the sentence; they are used to furnish certain parts of
sentence (very often they are used with predicates).
• Functional verbs are divided into three: link verbs, modal verbs, auxiliary
verbs.
• Link verbs are verbs which having combined with nouns, adjectives,
prepositional phrases and so on add to the whole combination the meaning
of process. In such cases they are used as finite forms of the verb they are
part of compound nominal predicates and express voice, tense and other
categories.
• Modal verbs are small group of verbs which usually express the modal
meaning, the speaker’s attitude to the action, expressed by the notional verb
in the sentence. They lack some grammatical forms like infinitive form,
grammatical categories and etc. Thus, they do not have all the categories of
verbs. They may express mood and tense since they function as parts of
predicates. They lack the non-finite forms.
• Besides in present-day English there is another group of verbs which are
called auxiliaries. They are used to form analytical forms of verbs. Verbs: to
be, to do, to have and so on may be included to this group.
 Verb Practice
All you have to do is read through the ten sentences below and choose the correct missing
verb in each one. Use the base form of each verb in brackets to help you and only use one
word in your answer.

Where should I (put) the empty bottles?

I'm going to (take) a few days off work soon.
They've (be) in the meeting for hours.
I (hear) the song last night.
The horse was (ride) by the young girl.
He had already (see) it.
Has she ever (buy) you lunch?
I am (look) for it at the moment.
Are you going to (speak) to her about it?
They (stop) calling me.
 Regular and Irregular Verbs
From the point of view of the formation of the Past Tense verbs are
classified into two groups:
1) Regular verbs which form their basic forms by means of productive
suffixes-(e)d. The majority of verbs refer to this class.
2) Irregular verbs form their basic forms by such non-productive means
as:
a) variation of sounds in the root: should - would - initial consonant
change begin - began - begun - vowel change of the root catch - caught -
caught - root - vowel and final consonant change spend - spent - spent -
final consonant change;
b) suppletion: be – was / were go – went.
c) unchanged forms: cast - cast – cast.
By suppletion we understand the forms of words derived from
different roots.
A. Smirnitsky gives the following conditions to recognize
suppletive forms of words;
1. when the meaning of words are identical in their lexical
meaning.
2. when they mutually complement one another, having no
parallel opposemes.
3. when other words of the same class build up a given
opposemes without suppletivity, i.e. from one root. Thus, we
recognize the words be - am, bad - worse as suppletive
because they express the same grammatical meanings as the
forms of words: light – lighter, big – bigger, work – worked.
 Let’s practice
Task: Change the verbs in brackets into the Past Tense.

Last Thursday it (to be) __________ a very wonderful day for me. I (get) __________ up at
4 in the morning, (have) __________ breakfast with my family, and (take) __________ a
shower. Then, I (wait) __________ for my best friend to put make-up on my face. That day
it (to be) ___________ my wedding day, and I (feel) __________ very nervous. My family
and I (get) ___________ ready at 7 a.m. One hour later, my fiancé and his family (come)
__________ to my house. At 9 a.m., the wedding ceremony (begin) _________ . Our
families (invite) __________ many people to the wedding party. Every guest in the party
(look) _________ happy to see us. Finally, we (become) __________ a couple of husband
and wife. Everyone (enjoy) __________ our wedding party. In our wedding party, there (to
be) __________ lots of kinds of foods, beverages, and sweets. Moreover, some of our
friends (give) __________ performances for the guests. They danced and (sing)
__________ for us. All people in the party (wish) _________ that we (will) _________ be
happy ever after, and we (hope) _________ it, too.
 Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Verbs can also be classified from the point of view of their ability of
taking objects. In accord with this we distinguish two types of verbs:
transitive and intransitive. The former type of verbs are divided into
two:
a) verbs which are combined with direct object: to have a book,
to find the address
b) verbs which take prepositional objects: to wait for, to look at, talk
about, depend on…
To the latter type the following verbs are referred:
a) verbs expressing state: be, exist, live, sleep, die …
b) verbs of motion: go, come, run, arrive, travel …
c) verbs expressing the position in space: lie, sit, stand ...
The opposition “active — passive” is represented by a
number of forms involving the categories of tense, aspect
and mood:
asks — is asked;
is asking — is being asked;
has asked — has been asked;
would ask — would be asked.

There are three ―medial voice types distinguished in

English: ―reflexive, ―reciprocal, and ―middle.
In reflexive constructions the subject of the action is the object of
the action at the same time, e.g.: He dressed quickly. This
meaning can be rendered explicitly by the reflexive ―-self
pronouns, e.g.: He dressed himself.
In reciprocal constructions the subject of the action is its object
at the same time, e.g.: They quarreled. This meaning can be
rendered explicitly with the help of the reciprocal pronouns one
another, each other, with one another, e.g.: They quarreled with
each other.
In middle constructions the subject combined with the otherwise
transitive verb is neither the doer of the action nor its immediate
object, the action is as if of its own accord, e.g.: The door opened;
The concert began.
 Practice Time
Go through the sentences and identify the transitive and intransitive verbs.
1. I like all of Katy Perry’s songs.
2. New Delhi is the capital of India.
3. Billie Eilish is a singer.
4. Will built a doll house for his eight-year-old daughter.
5. I ate a sandwich for breakfast.
1. I like all of Katy Perry’s songs. – Transitive Verb
2. New Delhi is the capital of India. – Intransitive Verb
3. Billie Eilish is a singer. – Intransitive Verb
4. Will built a doll house for his eight-year-old daughter. – Transitive Verb
5. I ate a sandwich for breakfast. – Transitive Verb