UNIT 3: THE VERB

A full verb is a word which expresses the existence of a state (e.g. love, hate, seem) or the doing of an action (e.g.
run, walk, play)
The term verb is used in two senses:
1- The verb (V) is one of the elements in the sentence, like the subject (S) and the object (O).
2- A verb is a part of speech or word class, like a noun and an adjective. As a word class, verbs can be divided
into three major categories:
a- The open class of full or lexical verbs.
b- The primary auxiliary verbs (do, have and be)
c- Modal verbs (e.g., must, can, might, etc.)

The full verb may occur alone, or with other verbal elements in a verb phrase, e.g., “is coming”. If there is only
one verb in the verb phrase, it is the main verb, and the verb phrase is simple. If there is more than one verb, the
final one is the main verb, and the ones that come before are auxiliaries. This type of phrase is called complex.
E.g.
They are playing
p. aux. verb full verb
Of the three classes of verbs, full verbs can act only as main verbs, modal auxiliaries can act only as auxiliary
verbs, and the primary can act either as main verbs or as auxiliary verbs. For example:
You didn’t do your homework.
P. aux. verb full verb
I haven’t had my breakfast yet. .
P. aux. verb full verb
Carl isn’t coming today. He is in a meeting
P. Aux. V Full verb Full verb

Auxiliary verbs have an important syntactic function in common: they become the operator when they occur as
the first verb in the verb phrase. The main verb BE and the main verb HAVE (sometimes, especially in BrE) are
also operators when they are the only verb in the verb phrase. On the other hand, only the auxiliary DO is an
operator, not the main verb do, when it is the first verb in a verb phrase. Operators have the following functions:
a- They form negative sentences when they precede the word “not”.
I cannot speak German
b- They form interrogative sentences when they occur in front of the subject.
Can you speak German?
c- They emphasize positive meaning when they are stressed.
You must finish your homework. I HAVE finished it
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 d- They form elliptical answers when the rest of the predication is omitted
Can you speak English? Yes, I can no, I can’t

When there is not an operator in a positive sentence, e.g., if no auxiliary verb is present in the verb phrase,
we introduce he dummy operator DO.
She goes to school by bus.
She doesn’t go to school by bus.

TENSE AND ASPECT

Verbs are used to express distinctions in time through tense. Tense is a grammatical category realized by
verb inflection. Time is a universal, nonlinguistic concept with three types of reference: past, present and
future. Tense is understood as the correspondence between the form of the verb and our concept of time.
There are two tenses in English: present and past tense.
Aspect is a grammatical category that concerns the way in which the speaker experiences the action
implied by the verb as completed or in progress. Aspect is normally realized by means of the use of
auxiliaries: be followed by present participles expresses progressive aspect, have followed by the past
participle expresses perfective aspect. There are then three aspect distinctions: the simple, the
progressive and the perfective.

The combination of the different tenses and aspects results in eight different verb tenses:

Present simple I travel

Past simple I travelled
Present progressive I am travelling
Past progressive I was travelling
Present perfect I have travelled
Past perfect I had travelled
Present perfect progressive I have been travelling
Past perfect progressive I had been travelling

Verbal forms
Many English verbs have six forms:
1- Base form
Modals: e.g. I will study hard
Imperatives: e.g. study hard
Present tense: e.g. (I-you-we-they) i miss you

2- Infinitive form
Bare infinitive: e.g. let me go

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 To infinitive: e.g. she wants to go with you

3- S-form
E.g: she studies hard
She is intelligent

4- Past form or V-ed1

They forgot the meting

He talked a lot

5- Present participle ( -ing participle)

She is listening to music

6- Past participle (or –ed participle) V-ed2

She has already visited that museum.
She has eaten the cake alone.

There are morphological rules that explain the spelling of verbal forms, i.e., the ways in which a verbal
form is predicted from its base. Also, there are phonological rules that explain the ways in which those
forms are pronounced. For example:
Morphological or spelling rules: the present participle form is derived by adding –ing to the base form.
Phonological or pronunciation rule: the past form is pronounced as /Id/ after bases ending in /d/ or /t/. E.g.
pad-padded

Some verbs called regular verbs have the same –ed ending or inflection or the past simple and the past
participle. They are called regular because the past and the past participle forms can e predicted from the
base form. Some other verbs are called irregular because the past and past participle forms cannot be
regularly predicted from the base.

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