A Linguistic Approach to Grammar Chapter 3 The Verb

The Verb

Introduction

In the lexicon of language, the verb is the most complex and the most difficult to learn.  Why? Because there are so many properties (or attributes) to a verb and so many forms to learn. Each form has a special function. If one counts each attribute and each form for all the attributes there can be over nine hundred individual forms for a verb. Scary, isn’t it! The good part of it is that we don’t use all of them all the time, but we do use some of them some of the time. The bad news is that to speak “good grammar,” we need to know how to work the formulas and how to use the forms.

What is a verb?
A verb is a word that labels an action, a condition, or an existence.

Definitions:
Action. This is the physical or mental process recognized by the verb.
           Physical process is the visible response to any movement. 
                Example: run, play, go, smile etc.
Condition: This is the state, position or situation that is temporary and subject to a change.
           Example: ail, study, feel, ponder
Existence: This shows the condition of continued life, or the fact that something is.

NOTE: As you can see there are two types of verbs: those that function physically (visibly) and those that function mentally.
Examples: visible: paint, hold, buy, reply
                mental: think, learn, worry, decide

What is the function of a verb?

A verb has one function. It is to act as the predicate of a sentence.

NOTE: More on the sentence in a chapter of its own. For now, the definition of a sentence is: a group of words that is a complete thought. It requires a subject (a noun or a noun phrase) and a predicate (a verb or a verb phrase). It can contain two words or any number of words.

Example: Birds fly. Or: Birds fly south in the winter.
               Dogs bark. My dogs bark when a stranger approaches the house.

You will notice that the noun in both sentence is “bird” or “dogs,”and the verb in both sentence is “fly”or“bark.” The rest of the words tell something about the noun or explain something about the verb.




Properties of a Verb

As any other word, the verb has its own properties or attributes. The verb has seven. They are:

1. Person
2. Number
(Have you seen that before? Both the noun and pronoun have these same attributes.)
3. Tense
4. Mood
5. Voice
6. Is it transitive or intransitive.
7. Regular or irregular

Explanation of the seven properties.

1. Person. There are three:
    First person is the person speaking. (Uses the personal pronouns I, we, me, my etc)
    Second Person is the person spoken to. (Uses the personal pronouns you, your, thou, etc)
    Third person is the person spoken about. (Uses the personal pronouns he, she, it, they etc)

2. Number. There are two:
    Singular means one and only one
    Plural means more than one.

3. Tense. This is the clock or time indicator of the verb. It states when the action in the sentence is happening.   There are three basic tenses. They are:

     Present tense which designates today.
     Past tense which designates yesterday and/or back in time.
      Future tense which designate tomorrow and/or beyond.

NOTE: There are 27 tenses! This is one of the complex and confusing attributes of a verb and will be studied later.

4. Mood. This indicates the subject’s attitude to the action of the verb. There are three.
    Indicative is used for factual statements.
    Subjunctive is used to indicate doubt, condition, or likelihood.
    Imperative is used to express a command.
               Imperative mood is always in the second person.

5. Voice. This indicates how the action is accomplished. There are two:
               Active: In this voice the subject is completing the action.
               Passive: In this voice the subject is acted upon.

6. Transitive or intransitive.
    A transitive verb has the ability to take or accept an object.
    An intransitive verb os also called a linking verb.

    They do not have the ability to take an object,

    but they link or complete the thought of the ending word or words

    and the subject of the sentence.

    Action verbs are usually transitive.
    Condition and existence verbs are usually intransitive.

7. Regular and irregular. This designates the forms used to indicate the principle parts of the verb.
        A regular verb (can also be called a weak ver*cool* adds an -ed to tje verb

       These verbs areoften verbs added from some other language or can be the

        use of another part of speech as a verb.
        An irregular verb (also called a strong verb.) Most of these verbs have their   

        origins in some Anglo-Saxon word). They usually change their spelling and form.


Principle Parts of a Verb

These are the forms that are either used to indicate time in a sentence or are used to form the verb phrases in a sentence which indicate the time in a sentence. They are:

    The Infinitive is formed by adding “to” in front of the verb.
    Simple Present is the verb form, but changes form for number
    Present Participle is formed by adding “-ing” to the verb 

    The following change in different ways depending upon whether the verb is regular or irregular.
    Simple Past
    Past Participle

Example:

Using the regular verbs the principle parts are