Verbs
What is the verb?
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.
Verbs are action words. they express state of being.
- action ( Suhel plays cricket.)
- state (Nidhi seems kind.)
Examples: run, walk, sleep, feel, give, interpret, work
Final Thoughts: Verbs are used to indicate the actions, processes, conditions, or states of beings of people or things.
Action Verbs Examples
Verbs referring to action are those that involve the movement of one’s body in one way or the other.
- Walk
- Run
- Talk
- Sit
- Read
- Write
- Jog
- Cough
- Sleep
- Jump
- Sing
- Drink
- Teach
- Present
- Build
- Break
- Tow
- Toss
- Hug
- Fight
Stative Verbs Examples
These are verbs that refer to something that you can feel or experience and do not necessarily involve a movement of any kind.
- Love
- Hate
- Envy
- Believe
- Trust
- Feel
- Entrust
- Experience
- Care
- Cherish
- Sense
- Know
- Recognize
- Understand
- Comprehend
- Like
- Need
- Adore
- Loathe
- Appreciate
Types of verb
We divide verbs into two broad classifications:
- Auxiliary or Helping verb
- Main verbs
Auxiliary or Helping verb
Auxiliary or “helping” verbs are verbs that are used to complete the meaning of other primary or “main” verbs in a sentence.
Helping verbs have no meaning on their own. They are necessary for the grammatical structure of a sentence, but they do not tell us very much alone. We usually use helping verbs with main verbs. They “help” the main verb (which has the real meaning). There are only about 16 helping verbs in English, and we divide them into three basic groups:
Primary helping verbs (3 verbs)
These are the verbs be, do, and have. Note that we can use these three verbs as helping verbs or as main verbs. On this page, we talk about them as helping verbs. We use them in the following cases:
be
- to make continuous tenses (Susmita is going to market.)
- to make the passive (Chicken is eaten by Ramu.)
have
- to make perfect tenses (You have completed your work.)
do
- to make negatives (I do not eat apples.)
- to ask questions (Do you want some more rice?)
- to show emphasis (I do want you to pass your exam.)
- to stand for a main verb in some constructions (He speaks faster than she does.)
Modal helping verbs (10 verbs)
We use modal helping verbs to “modify” the meaning of the main verb in some way.
The modal auxiliary verbs (often just called modal verbs) are used to express modality – that is, possibility, likelihood, ability, permission, obligation, or future intention. These are can, could, will, would, shall, should, must, may, might, and ought to.
They are distinguished by the fact that they are unable to conjugate into different forms, and they are only followed by a verb in its base form.
For example:
- I will be at the marriage party tonight. (Future intention)
- She can speak very well. (ability)
- May I be excused from the table? (permission)
- We must finish this today. (obligation)
Semi-modal verbs (3 verbs)
The following verbs are often called “semi-modals” because they are partly like modal helping verbs and partly like main verbs:
- need,
- dare,
- used to
Main Verbs
Main verbs have meaning on their own (unlike helping verbs). There are thousands of main verbs, and we can classify them in several ways:
Transitive and intransitive verbs
Transitive verbs describe an action that is happening to someone or something. This person or thing is known as the direct object of the verb. For example:
- He’s reading a book. (The action of reading is happening to the book.)
- The people watched the game from the bleachers. (The action of watched is happening to the game.)
- I was eating a delicious steak for dinner last night. (The action of eating is happening to a delicious steak.)
Note: Transitive verbs can also take indirect objects, those are the people or things receiving the direct object. For example:
>> I sent my brother a letter.” (My brother receives the letter through the action of sent.)
Intransitive verbs do not have objects – their action is not happening to anyone or anything.
For example:
- I can’t believe our dog ran away.” (There is no object receiving the action of ran away.)
- There was a lot of dust in the air, which made me sneeze. (There is no object receiving the action of sneeze.)
- Don’t be too loud while the baby sleeps. (There is no object receiving the action of sleeps.)
Linking verbs
A linking verb does not have much meaning in itself. It “links” the subject to what is said about the subject. Usually, a linking verb shows equality (=) or a change to a different state or place (→). Linking verbs are always intransitive (but not all intransitive verbs are linking verbs).
- Sahil is a teacher. (Sahil = teacher)
- Rani is beautiful. (Rani = beautiful)
- That sounds interesting. (That = interesting)
- The sky became dark. (The sky → dark)
- The bread has gone bad. (bread → bad)
Dynamic and stative verbs
Action verbs (also known as dynamic verbs) describe an active process that results in an effect.
For example:
- I ran to school.
- She read a book.
- They talked during lunch.
- We swam for over an hour.
Stative verbs describe states of being of a subject. These include linking verbs, such as be and verbs of the senses, which are used to describe or rename a subject using a predicative adjective or noun. It describes the state (non-action, a situation). They are called “stative” and cannot normally be used with continuous tenses (though some of them can be used with continuous tenses with a change in meaning).
For example:
- I am hungry.
- You sound tired.
- He seems like a bully.
Other stative verbs are those that express emotions, possession, cognition, and states or qualities.
For example:
- She likes old movies.
- They own three cars.
- I understand the issue.
- Your happiness depends on doing something you enjoy.
Regular and irregular verbs
Most verbs are regular verbs, which means that “-d” or “-ed” can be added to their base form (the infinitive of the verb without to) to conjugate both the past simple tense and past participle forms.
For example:
regular verbs: base, past tense, past participle
- look, looked, looked
- work, worked, worked
Irregular verbs, on the other hand, have past tense and past participle forms that do not (or do not seem to) adhere to a distinct or predictable pattern, and they are usually completely different from one another.
Unfortunately, this means that there is generally no way of determining how to conjugate irregular verbs—we just have to learn each one individually. There are many irregular verbs, but here are a few common ones:
irregular verbs: base, past tense, past participle
- buy, bought, bought
- cut, cut, cut
- do, did, done
- swim, swam, swum
- drive, drove, driven
- sing, sang, sung
- give, gave, given
- grow, grew, grown
- see, saw, seen
Phrasal Verbs
Phrasal verbs are verbs that pair with prepositions or particles to create unique, specific meanings. These are largely idiomatic, which means that they don’t make literal sense according to their individual parts. For example:
- I can’t believe that you’re giving up!
- The plane took off an hour late.
- He has been looking after his mother.
- Stop picking on your brother!
Catenative verbs
A main verb (i.e. lexical verb, not auxiliary or modal) that can be followed by another main verb is known as a catenative verb.
The word catenative comes from the Latin catena meaning “chain“. Catenative verbs combine with other verbs and can form a chain of two or three or more verbs.
In the following sentences, want, help, and like are catenative.
Examples:
- I want to eat.
- You want to drink.
- I like drinking.
- I want to see a movie.
- She helped clean the house.
- I like eating chocolate.
The verb following a catenative verb can be in one of the following forms:
- Infinitive (drink, to drink)
- -ing (drinking)
- Past participle (drunk)
