This is Lesson 18 of our Basic English Series.
Parts of Speech 3.1 – Verbs –
Most of the errors in English are in the use of verbs. This part of speech will cover quite a number of lessons in this series. So let us get started.
The first definition a young primary student learns at school is that, “Verbs are words that denote, show or express action”. As young students go up in their learning, they soon find out that the verb is the most complicated parts of speech in the English Language grammar. Just like the importance of nouns and pronouns in a sentence, verbs also have essential parts in a sentence to complete its structure. Verbs are usually found in, and part of, the predicate of a sentence. And interestingly, most one-word or single-word sentences are composed a verb.
Some English teachers (a number of them this author personally witnessed) erroneously identify the two major parts of a sentence as “The noun and the verb” or “The subject and the verb“. However, as discussed in Lessons 2, 3 and 4, a sentence is composed of the Subject and the Predicate, wherein the predicate describes the subject and therefore can be a verb (or verbs), a noun, a pronoun, an adjective (will be discussed in future lessons) and perhaps added with adverbs (will be discussed in our future lessons). Of course articles are also part of a complete sentence.
So again what are verbs? Let us start from the two basic groups of verbs; the action and linking verbs.
Again, the primary school definition of a verb is words that describe, denote and/or picture an action. The common examples that we know are run, walk, sing, cry, bark, read, jump, cry and so on.
But as primary students go up to the middle school, they will soon find out that a sentence cannot be complete without a verb and most of the time the verb is found between the subject and the predicate and is part of the predicate. Let us see some examples.
Example 1: The girl is beautiful. (The girl is the subject, and is beautiful is the predicate.)
Question: This is a complete sentence. But there is no action word and a sentence cannot be complete without a verb. And as explained earlier the verb is usually part, and at the beginning, of the predicate. Is the verb in the above example the is?
Your guess is correct. And although it is not an action word, it is still a verb called verb to be. Sometimes verbs to be are also used as linking verbs. And in the case above, the linking verb connects the girl to its modifier which is the adjective beautiful (We will discuss about adjectives in our future lessons).
Linking verbs are not action words but they are the type of verbs that connect the subject to its modifier (predicate).
There is another example we want to take a look at.
Example 2: The beautiful girl runs fast.
Now we can see an action word run. However, a letter s was added. This will be explained later in our lessons on verbs.
In example 2, run is the verb. The word fast is an adjective that modifies or describes the action. (As mentioned earlier, we will discuss adjectives in in our future lessons)
Here is yet another example.
Example 3: The beautiful girl is running so fast.
Now we can see a modified action word running. Also before that is a verb to be is.
In example 3, is running is a verb phrase. It is composed of the main or principal verb and the auxiliary or helping verb. In this phrase, the main or principal verb is the running and the auxiliary verb is the is. In a verb phrase the verb at the end of the phrase is the principal verb, while the others before it are the auxiliary verbs.
Here are some some of the auxiliary verbs that we want to use in most of our discussions on verbs. Please take note on how we are going to use them in our future discussions and examples.
is
are
am
was
were
will be
shall be
could be
have
has
had
have been
had been
has been
shall
will
do
did
does
may
can
might
could
would
should
must
should have
would have
must have
should have been
could have been
must have been
With the above brief discussion, we are sure your interest on verbs is already piqued. Let us take a look at the principal parts of verbs in the next lesson.
You may also jump to the lessons you want to see below.
