What are Verbs?

What are Verbs?

The verb is king in English. The shortest sentence contains a verb. You can make a one-word sentence with a verb, for example: "Stop!" You cannot make a one-word sentence with any other type of word.Verbs
are sometimes described as "action words". This is partly true. Many
verbs give the idea of action, of "doing" something. For example, words
like run, fight, do and work all convey action.But some verbs do not give the idea of action; they give the idea of existence, of state, of "being". For example, verbs like be, exist, seem and belong all convey state.A verb always has a subject. (In the sentence "John speaks English", John is the subject and speaks is the verb.) In simple terms, therefore, we can say that verbs are words that tell us what a subject does or is; they describe:

• action (Ram plays football.)
  
• state (Anthony seems kind.)
  

There is
something very special about verbs in English. Most other words
(adjectives, adverbs, prepositions etc) do not change in form (although
nouns can have singular and plural forms). But almost all verbs change
in form. For example, the verb to work has five forms:

• to work, work, works, worked, working
  

Of course, this is still very few forms compared to some languages which may have thirty or more forms for a single verb.In this lesson we look at the ways in which we classify verbs, followed by a quiz to test your understanding:

• [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]
  

[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]


Verb Classification

We divide verbs into two broad classifications:1. Helping Verbs

Imagine that a stranger walks into your room and says:

• I can.
  
• People must.
  
• The Earth will.
  

Do you understand anything? Has this person communicated anything to you? Probably not! 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. We usually use helping verbs with main verbs. They "help" the
main verb. (The sentences in the above examples are therefore
incomplete. They need at least a main verb to complete them.) 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? Has this person communicated something to you? 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.In
the following table we see example sentences with helping verbs and
main verbs. Notice that all of these sentences have a main verb. Only
some of them have a helping verb.

	helping verb		main verb
John			likes	coffee.
You			lied	to me.
They			are	happy.
The children	are		playing.
We	must		go	now.
I	do	not	want	any.

Helping verbs and main verbs can be further sub-divided, as we shall see on the following pages.[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]

English verbs come in several forms. For example, the verb to sing
can be: to sing, sing, sang, sung, singing or sings. This is a total of
6 forms. Not many, considering that some languages (French, for
example) have more than 30 forms for an individual verb. English tenses may be quite complicated, but the forms that we use to make the tenses
are actually very simple! With the exception of the verb to be, English main verbs have only 4, 5 or 6 forms. To be
has 9 forms. Do not confuse verb forms with tenses. We use the
different verb forms to make the tenses, but they are not the same
thing.In this lesson we look at the forms of main verbs and helping (auxiliary) verbs, followed by a quiz to check your understanding:

• 
  

Main verbs are also called "lexical verbs".
Main verbs (except the verb "be") have only 4, 5 or 6 forms. "Be" has 9 forms.

		V1	V2	V3
	infinitive	base	past simple	past participle	present participle	present simple, 3rd person singular
regular	(to) work	work	worked	worked	working	works
irregular	(to) sing (to) make (to) cut	sing make cut	sang made cut	sung made cut	singing making cutting	sings makes cuts
	(to) do* (to) have*	do have	did had	done had	doing having	does has
	infinitive	base	past simple	past participle	present participle	present simple
	(to) be*	be	was, were	been	being	am, are, is

In the above examples:

• to cut has 4 forms: to cut, cut, cutting, cuts
  
• to work has 5 forms: to work, work, worked, working, works
  
• to sing has 6 forms: to sing, sing, sang, sung, singing, sings
  
• to be has 9 forms: to be, be, was, were, been, being, am, is, are
  

The infinitive can be with or without to. For example, to sing and sing are both infinitives. We often call the infinitive without to the "bare infinitive".
At school, students usually learn by heart the base, past simple and past participle
(sometimes called V1, V2, V3, meaning Verb 1, Verb 2, Verb 3) for the
irregular verbs. They may spend many hours chanting: sing, sang, sung;
go, went, gone; have, had, had; etc. They do not learn these for the
regular verbs because the past simple and past participle are always the
same: they are formed by adding "-ed" to the base. They do not learn
the present participle and 3rd person singular present simple
by heart - for another very simple reason: they never change. The
present participle is always made by adding "-ing" to the base, and the
3rd person singular present simple is always made by adding "s" to the
base (though there are some variations in spelling).* Note that "do", "have" and "be" also function as [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], with exactly the same forms (except that as helping verbs they are never in infinitive form).Example Sentences

These example sentences use main verbs in different forms.Infinitive

• I want to work
  
• He has to sing.
  
• This exercise is easy to do.
  
• Let him have one.
  
• To be, or not to be, that is the question:
  

Base - Imperative

• Work well!
  
• Make this.
  
• Have a nice day.
  
• Be quiet!
  

Base - Present simple
(except 3rd person singular)

• I work in London.
  
• You sing well.
  
• They have a lot of money.
  

Base - After modal auxiliary verbs

• I can work tomorrow.
  
• You must sing louder.
  
• They might do it.
  
• You could be right.
  

Past simple

• I worked yesterday.
  
• She cut his hair last week.
  
• They had a good time.
  
• They were surprised, but I was not.
  

Past participle

• I have worked here for five years.
  
• He needs a folder made of plastic.
  
• It is done like this.
  
• I have never been so happy.
  

Present participle

• I am working.
  
• Singing well is not easy.
  
• Having finished, he went home.
  
• You are being silly!
  

3rd person singular, present simple

• He works in London.
  
• She sings well.
  
• She has a lot of money.
  
• It is Vietnamese.
  

[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] | [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] | [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]

Forms of Helping Verbs

All helping verbs are used with a main verb (either expressed or understood*). There are 2 groups of helping verbs:

• Primary helping verbs, used mainly to change the tense or voice of the main verb, and in making questions and negatives.
  
• Modal helping verbs, used to change the "mood" of the main verb.
  

Study
the table below. It shows the prinicipal forms and uses of helping
verbs, and explains the differences between primary and modal helping
verbs.* Sometimes we make a sentence that has a helping verb and
seems to have no main verb. In fact, the main verb is "understood". Look
at the following examples:

• Question: Can you speak English? (The main verb speak is "expressed".)
  
• Answer: Yes, I can. (The main verb speak is not expressed. It is "understood" from the context. We understand: Yes, I can speak English.
  

But if somebody walked into the room and said "Hello. I can", we would understand nothing!

Helping Verbs
Primary		Modal
do	(to make simple tenses, and questions and negatives)	can	could
be	(to make continuous tenses, and the passive voice)	may	might
have	(to make perfect tenses)	will	would
		shall	should
		must
		ought (to)
"Do", "be" and "have" as helping verbs have exactly the same forms as when they are [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] (except that as helping verbs they are never used in infinitive forms).		Modal helping verbs are invariable. They always have the same form.
Primary helping verbs are followed by the main verb in a particular [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]: do + V1 (base verb) be + -ing (present participle) have + V3 (past participle)		"Ought" is followed by the main verb in infinitive form. Other modal helping verbs are followed by the main verb in its base form (V1). ought + to... (infinitive) other modals + V1 (base verb)
"Do", "be" and "have" can also function as [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط].		Modal helping verbs cannot function as main verbs.

Helping verbs are also called "auxiliary verbs".