VERBS

• A verb describes an action or the state of being.

Examples:
write, read, is, are, walk etc

Verbs can be divided into two main types.

1. Helping Verbs
2. Main Verbs

1. Helping Verbs
Imagine that a stranger walks into your room and says:

• I can.
• People must.
• The Earth will.

Do you understand anything? Has this person communicated anything to

you? Probably not! That's because these verbs are helping verbs and have
no meaning on their own. They are necessary for the grammatical structure
of the sentence, but they do not tell us very much alone. We usually use
helping verbs with main verbs. They "help" the main verb. (The sentences in
the above examples are therefore incomplete. They need at least a main verb
to complete them.)

2. Main Verbs
Now imagine that the same stranger walks into your room and says:

• I teach.
• People eat.
• The Earth rotates.

Do you understand something? Has this person communicated something to

you? Probably yes! Not a lot, but something. That's because these verbs are
main verbs and have meaning on their own. They tell us something. Of
course, there are thousands of main verbs.

John Trento 1
In the following table we see example sentences with helping verbs and
main verbs. Notice that all of these sentences have a main verb. Only some
of them have a helping verb.

helping verb main verb

John likes coffee.

You lied to me.

They Are happy.

The children Are playing.

We Must Go now.

I Do Not want any.

Primary Helping 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
o to make continuous tenses (He is watching TV.)
o to make the passive (Small fish are eaten by big fish.)

Forms of verb “be” are:

Present Forms:

is (he,she, it, singular subject), am ( I ), are ( you, we, they, plural

subjects)

Past Forms:

was (I, she, he singular subject), were ( you, we, they, plural subject)

• have
o to make perfect tenses (I have finished my homework.)

John Trento 2
 • do
o to make negatives (I do not like you.)
o to ask questions (Do you want some coffee?)
o to show emphasis (I do want you to pass your exam.)
o to stand for a main verb in some constructions (He speaks faster
than she does.)

Modal Helping Verbs

We use modal helping verbs to "modify" the meaning of the main verb in
some way. A modal helping verb expresses necessity or possibility, and
changes the main verb in that sense. These are the modal verbs:

• can, could
• may, might
• will, would,
• shall, should
• must
• ought to

Here are examples using modal verbs:

• I can't speak Chinese.

• John may arrive late.
• Would you like a cup of coffee?
• You should see a doctor.
• I really must go now.

EXERCISE

1. I _____ jump over the fence. (can, is, have, are)

2. They _____ help their mother.( am, have, should, was )
3. The baby _____ sleeping. ( will, is, has, can )
4. The boys ____ go to the picnic. ( is, are, will, have)
5. Julie _____ finish her homework. ( must, is, has, are )

John Trento 3
6. I _____ writing correctly. ( will, am, are, have )
7. The girls _____ sweeping the floor. ( would, are, have, should)
8. Bob _____ come with us. ( is, has, may, were)
9. Mary _____ sitting on the swing. ( am, had, would, was )
10. The bears _____ fighting. ( are, have, can, must )
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Trento 4