Verb types
English verbs can be
described from different sides:
main verbs,
auxiliary verbs, modal verbs; regular and irregular verbs; transitive and
intransitive verbs.
Verbs
express an action (give, study, take) or a state (love, see, exist). Verbs have
full lexical meaning of their own: buy, eat, do, give, go, live, love, make,
permit, push, see, study, take, try, understand, write. Verbs can be
characterized from different sides: transitive or intransitive, action verbs
and stative verbs, regular or irregular.
Phrasal verbs are verbs that
form an idiomatic phrase with a postposition: give up, turn off, write down.
The verb “have” helps to form
the perfect tenses: He has gone home. He had left before I called.
Both “have” and “be” are used
in the formation of the perfect continuous tenses: He has been sleeping for two
hours.
Auxiliary Verbs
Auxiliary
verbs do not have specific lexical meaning. The verb “be” helps to form the
continuous tenses in the active voice and all of the tenses in the passive
voice: She is crying. The car was sold.
Auxiliary
verbs come before main verbs: be (am, is, are; was, were), do/does, will/shall
and have/has.
The verb "be" helps
to form the continuous tenses in the active voice and all of the tenses in the
passive voice and also functions as a linking verb.
The verb "have"
helps to form the perfect tenses;
The verb "will"
helps to form the future tenses;
The verb "do" helps
to form questions and answers in the simple present and Past simple.
She is typing now.
That letter was typed
yesterday.
She has already typed two
letters.
She will type a report
tomorrow.
Did you see her yesterday? –
Yes, I did. / No, I didn't.
Main Verbs
Main verbs have
meanings related to actions, events and states.
We went home straight after
the show.
It snowed a lot last winter.
Several different types of
volcano exist.
Modal Verbs
Modal
verbs are “can, could, may, might, will, would, must, shall, should, ought to”.
Modal verbs have meanings connected with degrees of certainty and necessity..
Modal verbs describe the speaker's attitude to the action expressed by the main
verb.
We’ll be there around 7.30.
(speaker is quite certain)
A new window could cost
around £500. (speaker is less certain)
I must ring the tax office.
(speaker considers this very necessary)
We should go there.
He can swim.
He might leave soon.
May I come in?
Will you please be quiet?
I'd like to know where you
are planning to sell the product.
Could you repeat it, please?
I'm afraid I don't understand. Could you explain it, please?
Could you tell me how to get
to the bank, please?
Could you tell me where the
Science Museum is, please?
Could you help me, please?
I'd like to know how to get to the center of the city from here.
Could you recommend good toy
stores and gift shops not far from here?
I'd like to reserve a single
room for six days starting on May sixth.
I'm going to the art museum.
Would you like to go with me?
I would like to invite you to
a concert (show, play, party, reception) tomorrow night.
We would like to invite you
to dinner (at our house; at a restaurant) tonight.
Causative Verbs
Causative verbs designate the
action necessary to cause another action to happen.
Professor had her students
read four short novels in one week.
She also made them read
five plays in one week.
However, she let them
skip the final exam.
Factitive Verbs
Verbs like
“make, choose, judge, elect, select, name”
are called factitive verbs. These
transitive verbs can take two objects.
The faculty elected him the
new Academic Dean.
Strong and weak verbs:
Strong verbs form the Past simple tense by changing the vowel in the root: fall – fell, see – saw, swim – swam, write – wrote. All strong verbs are irregular verbs.
Weak verbs
include all regular verbs because regular verbs add the ending “ed” to form the
Past simple tense without changing the root vowel. Weak verbs also include some
of the irregular verbs that end in "t" or "d" in the past
tense: bring – brought, cut – cut, feed – fed, spend – spent.
Action and stative verbs
Action
verbs express an action (break, turn, run). Most main verbs are action verbs.
Stative verbs (no progressive verbs) do not express an action (i.e., they
express state); they are usually not used in the continuous tenses.
mental perception: know, believe, suppose, understand, remember,
sense perception: see, feel, hear, smell,
emotional state: like, love, hate, want,
Some other verbs: own, belong, cost, seem
Some stative verbs can also
function as action verbs. Stative verb "look": She looks good. Action
verb "look": She is
looking out of the window.
Finite and non-finite verbs
Verbs which have the past or the present form
are called “Finite verbs”. A finite
verb functions as the predicate in the sentence and agrees with the subject in
person and number:
He works, he is working.
They work, they are working.
Paul runs to work every day.
(Finite)
Verbs in any other form (infinitive, Ving, or
Ved) are called “Nonfinite verbs”: the
broken window… The wheezing gentleman…
Non-finite
verb forms, or verbals; infinitive, gerund, and both participles, can't show
person, number, or tense, but they can show aspect and voice with the help of
auxiliary verbs.
They have run away together.
(Nonfinite)
We found him smoking
behind the shed. (Nonfinite)
Transitive and intransitive verbs: Geçişli –
geçişsiz fiiller
Transitive verbs require a direct object: make
coffee, read books, take a pen, write a letter. Remember: to find a direct
object of a transitive verb, first find the verb and then ask "what?"
or "whom?"
He left his bag.
He left a note.
She kissed me.
Intransitive
verbs do not require a direct object. They may be used without any object or
may be followed by an adverb or a prepositional object: speak slowly, speak
with him.
He left. He left quickly.
He left for London.
The workers protested their
innocence in the car park. (Transitive)
The workers protested in the
car park. (Intransitive)
