Building a sentence in English is like building a house.

A house is made up of many

parts, but some are essential while others are ornamental. A house needs foundations
but it does not need curtains, for a house without foundations cannot stand, whereas a
house without curtains, while less pretty, is still a house.

There are 8 basic tools in building a sentence, but only one is essential. These tools are
called parts of speech.

1. nouns
2. pronouns
3. verbs
4. adjectives
5. adverbs
6. prepositions
7. conjunctions
8. interjections

The one essential part of speech is the verb. You can have a sentence with just one
word: e.g., Go!;

A verb is a word that tells us what someone or something is or does within the
framework of time. Verbs may be primarily classified under three categories:

1. action verbs
2. linking verbs
3. helping verbs

• Action verbs refer to whatever somebody or someone does. Remember,

however, that doing refers to both physical and mental action (e.g., verbs of
thinking, believing, considering… would be regarded as action verbs)

• Linking verbs refer to whatever somebody or someone is. The most important
linking verb is the verb to be; however, it is not the only one: to feel, to become,
to appear, to seem, to sound, to grow, to taste… these may act as linking verbs. I
say ´´act´´ because some of these verbs, depending on context, may play the role
of action verbs. There is a trick, however, that will allow you to distinguish one
from the other quite easily. Let me give you an example

1. I grow tomatoes in my garden.

2. The sky grew dark as night approached.

The verb ´´to grow´´ plays the role of action verb in the first sentence but in the second
sentence is a linking verb, and how do we know? Because if I substitute the verb ´´grew
´´ with its corresponding past tense of the verb ´´to be´´, the sentence still makes sense:
The sky was dark as night approached.

Let me give you another example:

1. The policeman sounded the alarm.

2. His voice sounds strange.
If I were to say ´´ The policeman was the alarm´´, the sentence would be ridiculous…
senseless, but if I say ´´ His voice is strange´´ , it isn´t. So I can tell right away that the
first is an action verb and the second, a linking verb.

One last example:

1. I think you should not come.

2. This paella tastes good.

Try the same experiment and you will see that you cannot say ´´ I am you should not
come´´ but you can say ´´ This paella is good´´

• Helping verbs are auxiliary verbs that help form new tenses. Without them, we
would have only the present and past simple tenses. English needs to borrow
largely from auxiliary verbs to form the subjunctive as well. I won´t dwell on
this for too long right now because these types of verbs will play a larger role
when we look at tenses and their uses.

e.g., have played: have is the helping verb and played is the main verb. Both form a unit
called ´´ verb phrase´´. What do we do to determine if the verb phrase is action or
linking? We look at the main verb. In this case the verb would be ´´to play´´, which is
action.