Verbs are words that allow us to talk about activities, processes, states of being, and states of mind. Verbs are frequently used with a noun, with somebody’s name or, particularly in English, with a pronoun such as I, you or she to describe an action. They can relate to the present, the past and the future; this is called their tense.
This basket holds quite a lot.
John was reading Katherine’s essay.
Fiona is preparing a talk for next week’s class.
Helen feels much happier now.
I forgot that it was your birthday.
Paul owned several old motorbikes.
When we want to talk about everything to do with a verb, we use the term verb phrase.
A verb phrase can be a single word or a group of associated words.
- he walks
- he is walking
- he had walked
- he can walk
- he has been walking
- he might have been walking
When a verb phrase consists of a single word it is called a simple verb. Many verbs in English are made by combining an auxiliary verb and a main verb; this is called a compound verb.
Main verbs (or lexical verbs) are the verbs that we use to indicate actions and states. Most of the verbs in English are main verbs.
Main verbs are divided or classified in several ways:
- according to whether they refer to states
I can really taste the herbs in this omelette.
This scarf belongs to me.
He hates losing.
She always liked boats and sailing.
I already feel that I have known you for ages.
- or actions.
Three boys were kicking a ball around in the field.
We were running across the football field.
For six hours, Stuart drove across open desert.
- into regular and irregular verbs according to the spelling of their forms. Regular verbshave forms that follow the normal rules. Irregular verbs have forms do not follow normal rules.
regular: talk, talks, talking, talked.
irregular: swim, swims, swimming, swam, swum.
irregular: go, goes, going, went, gone.
- according to whether or not they are followed by an object. That is, whether they are transitive or intransitive.
I can read.
We both read the same newspaper.
Don’t tell me.
We both ran away.
Sue found a bracelet.
I saw my best friend on Friday.
Almost all verbs have a form called the infinitive. This is a base form of the verb (for example, walk, see, hear in English) that hasn’t had any endings added to it and doesn’t relate to any particular tense. In English, the infinitive is usually shown with to, as in to speak, to eat, to live.
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