Verbs

Revision Come up with some adjectives ending in: -ish, -ful, -y, -ive, -able.

Give the comparative and superlative forms of the following adjectives: thin, far, homeless, friendly, terrible.

Analyze the following adjectives: circular, brownish, clever, Chinese, slow.

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Verbs

March 30, 2012

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Verbs A verb is a word used primarily to indicate a type of action (fly, walk, throw), though sometimes the action is merely emotional or intellectual (believe, think). It may also be used to indicate a state of being (live, exist).

The term ‘verb’ is from the Latin ‘verbum’ meaning ‘word’: hence it is the word of a sentence. A thought cannot be expressed without a verb. When the child cries, "Apple!" it means, “Look, an apple!” or “I have an apple!” or “I want an apple.”

Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, mood and voice. It may also agree with the person and number.

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Transitive vs Intransitive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1FL05uW4Fg All action verbs are divided into transitive and intransitive verbs.

To determine whether a verb is transitive, ask whether the action is done to someone or something. Or put another way, does someone or something receive the action of the verb. If it does, then the verb is transitive and the person or thing that receives its action is the direct object.

E.g. Becky walked the dog. – ‘walk’ is a transitive verb here.

But the word ‘walk’ can also be intransitive. E.g. Becky walked to school. There is no object following the verb in this example.

An intransitive verb never has a direct or indirect object. E.g. He lives in Haapsalu.

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Linking Verbs A linking verb connects the subject of a sentence to a noun or adjective that renames or describes it. This noun or adjective is called the subject complement.

E.g. Jason became a businessman. – The verb ‘became’ links the subject to its complement.

The most common linking verb is the verb BE in all of its forms (am, is, are, was, were, etc.). But it may also be used as a helping verb (see next slide). Other common linking verbs are: become, seem. Some verbs may be linking verbs in some cases and action verbs in other cases, e.g., to feel, to smell, to taste, to appear, to look, to turn, etc.

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Helping Verbs Once upon a time there was a wealthy merchant named Mr. Do. Mr. Do was very old and very rich. His many relatives were dreaming of the day the old man would die. They wondered which one of them would inherit his money. Finally, one day Mr. Do died. All the relatives searched his house for a will.

They didn't find one. They searched his house three times. They still did not find a will. The relatives did not get one dime of Mr. Do's fortune.

The moral of the story: Maybe Mr. Do should have a will.

Remember this sentence and you will know how to set up a chart of the 23 helping verbs! The largest "family" is the "BE" family with 8 members. The other five families have 3 members each.

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Helping Verbs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-bIkB52GdI May be do should have Might being does could has Must been did would had am is are was were

will can shall

A sentence may contain up to three helping verbs to the main verb. E.g., The dog must have been chasing the cat.

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Helping Verbs Helping words are also called auxiliary verbs. They come before the main verb of a sentence and convey additional information regarding aspects of possibility (can, could, etc.) or time (was, did, has, etc.). Together with the main verb they form a verb phrase.

Auxiliaries can be used before the word ‘not’, main verbs cannot.

The contracted form ‘n’t’ can also be attached to almost all auxiliaries; this is not possible with main verbs (apart from ‘be’ and ‘have’) A modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality (i.e. possibility, necessity), e.g., can, shall, will, must, may.

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Verbs Put the following words into three groups: simple, derived, compound verbs: To classify, to jump, to babysit, to organize, to undergo, to swim, to dream, to sleepwalk, to soften, to activate, to wink, to blackmail, to simplify

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Phrasal Verbs Phrasal verbs are "multi-word verbs“, e.g., pick up, turn on or get on with. These verbs consist of a basic verb + another word or words. The other word(s) can be prepositions and/or adverbs. The two or three words that make up multi-word verbs form a short "phrase“ — which is why these verbs are often called "phrasal verbs". http://my.englishclub.com/video/amazing-intro-to-phrasal-verbs The important thing to remember is that a multi-word verb is still a verb. "Get" is a verb. "Get up", is also a verb. "Get" and "get up" are two different verbs.

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Regular vs Irregular The forms of regular verbs can be predicted by rules. There are thousands of regular verbs in English.

Regular verbs appear in 4 forms: the base form (a form with no endings, as listed in a dictionary), the –s form (used for the 3rd person singular in the present tense), the –ing form (present participle), the –ed form (in the past form and -ed participle form).

An irregular verb is one where some of the forms are unpredictable. There are more than 400 irregular verbs in English. Irregular forms make their –s form and –ing form by adding an ending to the base, in the same way as regular verbs do. But they have either an unpredictable past tense or an unpredictable –ed participle form or both. Many irregular verbs therefore appear in 5 forms. E.g. sing, sings, singing, sang, sung http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWSESCNvf4k TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Tense A tense is a form of a verb used to indicate the time, and sometimes the continuation or completeness, of an action in relation to the time of speaking. (From Latin tempus = ‘time’).

So, we talk about time in English with tenses. But: • we can also talk about time without using tenses (for example, going to is a special construction to talk about the future, it is not a tense) • one tense does not always talk about one time (If I had time, I would go.)

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The English Verb Tense System Present Simple Past Simple Future Simple Present Continuous Past Continuous Future Continuous Present Perfect Past Perfect Future Perfect Present P. Continuous Past P. Continuous Future P. Continuous + Future Simple in the past Future Continuous in the past Future Perfect in the past Future Perfect Continuous in the past 16 tenses in Active Voice 10 tenses in Passive Voice TLĂœ Haapsalu KolledĹž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Mood 1) Indicative mood expresses a simple statement or fact, which can be positive (affirmative) or negative. e.g. I like coffee. I don’t like coffee.

2) Imperative mood expresses a command e.g. Sit down! Don´t leave!

3) Subjunctive mood expresses what is imagined or wished or possible e.g. The President ordered that he attend the meeting. I demand that he be here. I wish that he were with me.

Today the mood has practically vanished. Instead the conditional mood is used (might, could, would clauses).

Some linguists consider interrogative sentences to constitute a mood as well - interrogative mood. e.g. Why do you like coffee? What´s wrong with you?

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Voice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKUNYp_Bc0g A voice shows the relationship of the subject to the action. In the active voice, the subject does the action (cats eat mice). In the passive voice, the subject receives the action (mice are eaten by cats). Among other things, we can use voice to help us change the focus of attention.

E.g., He has broken the window.

The window has been broken.

Most verbs which take an object (transitive verbs) can appear in both active and passive constructions (eat, break, buy). There are just a few exceptions, such as resemble and most uses of have (e.g. I had a car.).

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Bibliography Crystal, D. (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. CUP Understanding Verbs: Basic Types of Verbs www.uhv.edu/ac/efl/pdf/verbsbasictypes.pdf Understanding Verbs: Verb Tenses www.uhv.edu/ac/efl/pdf/verbstenses.pdf The English Verb Tense System www.bergen.edu/faculty/rfreud/verbtense.pdf

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee