VERBS

The Verb is King in English

The shortest sentence contains a verb.

"Stop!"
 What is a Verb?
• Verbs are words that tell us what a
subject does or is; they describe:
• action (Ram plays football.)
e.g. run, fight, gallop
• state (Anthony seems kind.)
e.g. be, exist, seem, belong
 Verbs are Special
Verbs have five forms:
1. The Infinitive Form: to write
2. The Present Form includes the Base
Form and the ‘S’ Form: write, writes
3. The Past Form: wrote
4. The Past Participle Form: written
5. The ‘ing’ Form includes the Present
Participle and Gerund: writing
 INFINITIVE
• An infinitive is formed by using the
word ‘to’ before the verb in its stem
word. It functions as a noun, adjective
or adverb.

Examples:
• He was made to clean his room.
• Shalini loves to talk.
•
 Participles & Gerunds
Participles, Gerunds and Infinitives are called verbals. Verbals are words
which are formed from a verb but which function as a different part of
speech.

PARTICIPLE
• A participle is usually formed by adding –ing or –ed to a verb. It functions
as an adjective.
Examples:
• The singing bird was the main attraction at the event.
• The injured man was waiting for the doctor.
•
• GERUND
• A gerund is formed by adding –ing to a verb. It functions as a noun.
Examples:
• Swimming is very good for the body.
• Smoking is prohibited in the hospital.
 Verb Classification
1.
Helping Verbs
• Imagine that a stranger walks into your room and says:
• I can. People must. The Earth will.
• Do you understand anything? 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. They "help" the main verb.
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? 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.
Helping Verbs or Auxiliary Verbs
Primary helping verbs (3 verbs) & ‘Will’
• These are the verbs be, do, and have. Note that we
can use these three verbs as helping verbs or as
main verbs. On this page we talk about them as
helping verbs. We use them in the following cases:
• be
– to make continuous tenses (He is watching TV.)
– to make the passive (Small fish are eaten by big fish.)
• have
– to make perfect tenses (I have finished my homework.)
• do
– to make negatives (I do not like you.)
– to ask questions (Do you want some coffee?)
– to show emphasis (I do want you to pass your exam.)
– to stand for a main verb in some constructions (He
speaks faster than she does.)
 Be
• The verb ‘be’ can be used as an auxiliary and a full verb, we
can distinguish between the two uses as the auxiliary ‘be’ will
always have another main verb coming after it in a sentence.
‘Be’ is an irregular verb with many different forms according to
the different tenses
 Be
• Passive Voice Use of Be:
• Using passive voice means when we want to put the emphasis on
the object, to which the action is being done instead of on the
subject or not include the subject at all e.g. -
• The dishes are washed.
 Have
• HAVE
• The verb ‘have’ can also be used as full verb or a helping verb. The way to
differentiate between them is that if ‘have’ is used as an auxiliary verb, then it has
to be followed by a main verb as well. The verb ‘have’ is used to make compound
tenses in active and passive voices, and also used in the making of negative
sentences and questions. It is an irregular verb that changes form according to
tense.
Have
 Have
• Negative Sentences and Questions:
• While making negative sentences and questions with ‘have’ as an
auxiliary verb, we need to be careful to put ‘have’ before the other verb
otherwise ‘have’ becomes the main verb of the sentence.

• She does not have a cake.

• - In this sentence ‘have’ is the main verb while ‘does not’ becomes the
auxiliary verb.
• She has not got a cake.
• - In this sentence ‘have’ is the helping verb for the main verb which
is ‘got’.
•
• Has she got cake?
• - Here the main verb is ‘got’ and the helping verb is ‘have’ as it comes
before the main verb.
• Does she have cake?
• - In this sentence the main verb is ‘have’ as it comes after the helping
verb ‘does’.
 Do
• DO
• The helping verb ‘do’ can also act as a full verb
only in positive sentences. When do is used in
a negative sentence, it is an auxiliary verb. The
helping verb ‘do’ is also used to make
questions for most verbs except other
auxiliary verbs and the modal verbs. Do is an
irregular verb that changes its form according
to the tense.
DO
 Do
Places Where ‘Do’ is Not Used:
• There are certain instances where the auxiliary
verb ‘do’ is not used for negative sentences or
questions. The following table tells the
different reasons and instances where and why
‘do’ is not used.
 Will
• The verb ‘will’ is the only auxiliary verb that can never be a main
verb. It is always used as an auxiliary to make future tenses and
negative sentences. Also, it remains the same throughout every
tense and person.

Negative:
• She will not have cake. = She won’t have cake.
• - As ‘will’ can only be an auxiliary verb, both the sentences are
grammatically correct.

Future tense of will

Helping Verbs or Auxiliary Verbs
Modal helping verbs (10 verbs)
• We use modal helping verbs to "modify" the meaning of the
main verb in some way. A modal helping verb expresses
necessity or possibility, and changes the main verb in that
sense. These are the modal verbs:
• can, could
• may, might
• will, would,
• shall, should
• must
• ought to
Here are examples using modal verbs:
• I can't speak Chinese.
• John may arrive late.
• Would you like a cup of coffee?
• You should see a doctor.
• I really must go now.
 Modals
Uses:
1. To indicate that something is probable or possible, or not
so. For example:
• It is sunny today; it must be warm outside. = It is sunny
today; it is probably warm outside.
• His mobile is not reachable; he may/might/could be
travelling by metro. = His mobile is not reachable; it is
possible that he is travelling by metro.
• This can’t be our bill. = It is not possible that this is our bill.
2. ‘Can’ and ‘could’ are used to refer to skills and abilities. For
example:
• He can cover a hundred metres in under ten seconds.
• My father could see perfectly before the age of fifty.
• I can’t ride a horse.
 Modals
3. ‘Must’ is used to indicate that something is
necessary or of extreme importance, and ‘should’
is used to suggest that something is advisable. For
example:
• You must do your homework.
• You mustn’t skip school.
• You should say sorry.
• You shouldn’t smoke.
4. ‘Can’, ‘could’ and ‘may’ are used to ask for, give
and withhold permission. For example:
• Can I try my hand at it?
• Could we disperse early today?
• You may not enter the premises.
 Modals
5. ‘Will’ and ‘would’ are used to refer to habits and
inclinations.
• When I was a child, I would often climb trees.
• I will never refuse you anything.
• He would never do such a thing.
These verbs differ from ordinary verbs in 3 respects.
1. When used with the third person singular (he,
she), they don’t require the addition of an ‘s’.
2. They can be used to form questions by inverting
the structure of the sentence.
3. They can be followed directly by the verb, without
the use of ‘to’.
Helping Verbs or Auxiliary Verbs
Semi-modal verbs (3 verbs)
The following verbs are often called
"semi-modals" because they are partly
like modal helping verbs and partly like
main verbs:
• need
• dare
• used to
 Main Verbs or Lexical Verbs
Transitive and intransitive verbs
• A transitive verb takes a direct object: Somebody
killed the President.
• I saw an elephant. We are watching TV.
• He speaks English.

• An intransitive verb does not have a direct

object: He died.
• He has arrived. John goes to school.
• She speaks fast.

• Many verbs, like speak, can be transitive or

intransitive. Look at the above examples.
 Main Verbs or Lexical Verbs
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)
Main Verbs or Lexical Verbs
Dynamic and stative verbs
• Some verbs describe action. They are called "dynamic",
and can be used with continuous tenses.
• hit, explode, fight, run, go

• 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).
• be
• like, love, prefer, wish
• impress, please, surprise
• hear, see, sound
• belong to, consist of, contain, include, need
• appear, resemble, seem
• require
 Stative Verbs
•

Stative verbs are verbs that describe a state rather than an action.
When describing states, they never take the continuous (‘-ing’) form.
Here are some examples of stative verbs and instances of their correct
and incorrect usage.
•
Main Verbs or Lexical Verbs
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.
Regular verbs: base, past tense, past participle
• look, looked, looked
• work, worked, worked

• For irregular verbs, the past tense ending and the past
participle ending is variable, so it is necessary to learn them
by heart.
Irregular verbs: base, past tense, past participle
• buy, bought, bought
• cut, cut, cut
• do, did, done
 Regular Verbs
Remember the following points:
1. Some verbs can be both regular and irregular, for example:
• learn, learned, learned
learn, learnt, learnt

2. Some verbs change their meaning depending on whether

they are regular or irregular, for example "to hang":
• Regular - hang, hanged, hanged: to kill or die, by dropping
with a rope around the neck
• Irregular - hang, hung, hung: to fix something (for example, a
picture) at the top so that the lower part is free

3. The present tense of some regular verbs is the same as the

past tense of some irregular verbs:
• Regular - found, founded, founded
• Irregular - find, found, found
 Irregular Verbs
• We use irregular verbs a lot when speaking,
less when writing. Of course, the most
famous English verb of all, the verb "to be",
is irregular.
• For Irregular verbs, there is no rule...
• Sometimes the verb changes completely:
sing sang sung
• Sometimes there is "half" a change:
buy bought bought
• Sometimes there is no change: cut cut cut
 Finite and Non-finite Verbs

• Finite Verbs
• Finite Verbs are those verbs that have a definite relation
with the subject or noun. These verbs are usually the main
verb of a clause or sentence and can be changed according
to the noun. They are used only in present and past tense.
They can be indicative of passive or active voice and also of
number (singular or plural).
• She walks home. - Here we see that the finite verb
is walks and the pronoun is 'she'.
• She walked home. - Here we can see how the verb
changed/modified to change the tense of the sentence.
 Finite and Non-finite Verbs

• Non-Finite Verbs
• These verbs cannot be the main verb of a clause or sentence as they do
not talk about the action that is being performed by the subject or
noun. They do not indicate any tense, mood or gender. They are used as
nouns, adverbs and adjectives. They are also used to form non-finite
clauses which are simply dependent clauses that use non-finite verbs.
• He loves camping in the woods. - Here the non-finite verb is camping and
it is used as a noun. These kind of non-finite verbs are called Gerunds.
• I need to go to sleep. - Here the non- finite verb phrase is to sleep, it is
acting as a noun. Non-finite verbs that use ‘to’ before them are
called Infinitives.
• The sleeping dog caused a delay. - The nonfinite verbs that have ‘-ing’ or ‘-
ed’ as suffixes and cause the verb to come an adjective are
called Participles.
 Verb Forms
• English has many verb forms. Here are some of the most
common:
• do/does/did + base verb: She does not believe me. When did you
arrive?
• modal + base verb: What will he do now? He will stay with us for
awhile.
• make/let/have + someone/something + base verb
(causative) The teacher made her students finish their homework
in class. He let me leave early. Please have the tutor explain this to
you.
• to be + verb + -ing (present participle) We are going to the movies
this evening.
• to be + verb + -ed, -en, -t (past participle) They are going to be
married soon.
• have/has/had + -ed, -en, -t (past participle) We haven't
completed our work yet.
• preposition + verb + -ing (gerund) She is tired of doing the same
job day after day.
• verb + to + base (infinitive) Mary wants to leave now.
• verb + verb + -ing (gerund)Tom avoids smoking. I look forward to
seeing you.
Incorrect: Sharon quitted her job.
Correct: Sharon quit her job.
He did not showed up on time.
He did not show up on time.
Her jewelry has been stole.
Her jewelry has been stolen.
What made her returns home so
What made her return home so quickly?
quickly?
He is planning to leave later on today.
He is plan to leave later on today.