Week 3 - Verbs

Karen Elizabeth Gordon, author of ‘The Transitive Vampire’, dubbed the verb the ‘heart-throb’ of the sentence. Verbs should do most of the work in a sentence. They describe the state of being of the subject of a sentence, such as ‘I am a writer’, express an action, such as ‘I wrote a book’, or describe an occurrence of the subject of a sentence, such as ‘something terrible happened’.

For example: ‘I am here in the studio so that I can record this week’s introduction to verbs’, where ‘am’ and ‘can record’ are verbs. Another example is You are watching this video so that you can use verbs well in your writing. Verbs are divided into two classes: finite and non-finite. We’ll first deal with finite verbs, before moving on to non-finite verbs in this week’s second lecture. The base form of a verb is what you see in a dictionary. It will have the marker ‘to’ in front of it: for example, ‘to read’ or ‘to watch’. Finite verbs can be joined by linking verbs and helping verbs. They are classified as either transitive or intransitive, according to whether or not they act upon an object in the sentence.

Verbs form the tense of a sentence, which indicates the time of the action. They can also express mood: that is, whether a sentence is a statement, an order, or expresses a potentiality or something hypothetical. Finally, verbs can indicate whether the subject of a sentence is acting or being acted upon. This is called the voice of the verb.

Linking, or copular, verbs link a subject with a complement that describes or explains it, restates the subject, or describes its state of being. They include sensory verbs, like hear, look, taste, smell, feel, and verbs such as be, appear, seem, become, grow, remain, stay, prove, sound, and turn (when referring to a state or condition). For example, in ‘Agatha seems intrigued’, ‘seems’ is a verb linking the subject, ‘Agatha’, with her state of being, ‘intrigued’. Other examples include ‘we remain committed to our cause’ and ‘you appear to have arrived’.

Helping, or auxiliary, verbs assist in forming tenses when combined with a main verb. Parts of the verb ‘to be’, the verb ‘to do’, and the verb ‘to have’ are the primary auxiliary verbs.

In the sentence, ‘I am getting used to the dragon’, ‘am’, a part of the verb ‘to be’, is a helping verb, as are ‘have’ and ‘do’ in the following sentences. Modal auxiliary verbs, or simply modal verbs, indicate modality. When combined with a base verb form they suggest a condition, need, likelihood or probability, requirement or obligation, ability, or permission.

For example, in the sentence ‘you should read this book next’, ‘should’ is a modal auxiliary verb. It combines with ‘read’, the main verb, and indicates a suggestion or obligation. After this lecture, we have a drag-and-drop exercise where we’ll ask you to place auxiliary verbs into their correct slots.

Transitive verbs are verbs that express an action carried out on one or more objects. While they require a direct object to complete their meaning, they can also relate to an indirect object.

Consider the sentence ‘I made a cake.’ ‘Made’ is a transitive verb because it takes on the direct object cake. In ‘I wrote the Queen a letter’, ‘wrote’ is a transitive verb, ‘letter’ is the direct object, and ‘Queen’ is an indirect object.

Intransitive verbs don’t require an object to complete their meaning. They are complete in themselves.

If I wrote ‘ice melts in the sun’, the word ‘melts’ is an intransitive verb. It describes what the ice does, but not in relation to any object.

‘My dog lay down on the floor’ could just as well read ‘my dog lay down’, whereas ‘I made a cake’ could not rightly read ‘I made’.

Let’s move now on to other kinds of verbs.

Verb phrases are compound verbs. That is, they comprise a main verb and a helping verb. For example, ‘I can read’, ‘the film has started’, ‘I have been there’, et cetera, where the main verbs are ‘read’, ‘started’, and ‘been’, and the helping verbs are ‘can’, ‘has’, and ‘have’.

Not to be confused with verb phrases, which we have just looked at, phrasal verbs, or prepositional verbs, as they are sometimes known, are very different. A phrasal verb is a two- or three-word verb consisting of a main verb plus a preposition or adverb vital to the meaning of that verb. Note that you must take care never to hyphenate a phrasal verb. Take ‘let’s turn on the light’, or ‘I’ll climb up that tree’ as examples, where the words ‘turn on’ and ‘climb up’ are phrasal verbs.

Non-finite verbs, also referred to as verbals, consist of the infinitive, participle, and gerund verb forms. Unlike finite verbs, they can’t complete an independent clause nor does their form change.

Participles can be either present or past tense, and require the addition of a helping verb to make a verb phrase.

The present participle always ends in ‘-ing’, such as in the sentence ‘I am riding north tonight’. In this example, ‘am’ is the helping verb and ‘riding’ is the present participle.

The past participle ends in ‘-d’ or ‘-ed’ most of the time, but can have an irregular ending, such as ‘-t’. In the sentence ‘I have cooked dinner tonight’, cooked is the past participle. In ‘I have broken my curfew’, broken is the past participle, and, as you can see, has an irregular ending. The sentence ‘bored students need extra work to do’ is an example of how a past participle—in this case ‘bored’—can function as an adjective.

The gerund is a non-finite verb that always ends in ‘-ing’, and always functions as a noun. For example, in ‘swimming can be therapeutic’, the gerund ‘swimming’, acts as a noun. The same goes for ‘dancing’, as in ‘Boris loves dancing’. Both present participles and gerunds end in ‘-ing’. Whether a verb is a present participle or a gerund depends on its function in a sentence. Some grammarians call both gerunds and participles ‘gerund-participles’.

Our last non-finite verb form is the infinitive. The infinitive form of a verb is its ‘base’ form, and is most often introduced by the marker ‘to’, as in ‘I want to breed show ponies’.

Some people believe that it’s wrong to split an infinitive. This rule came about because the infinitive in Latin is a single word, and so cannot be split. In English, the infinitive is two words, and so can be freely split, as in ‘to boldly go’, or ‘to gradually disperse’.

One final addition to this lecture is the verbal phrase. Recall that non-finite verbs are sometimes called verbals. A verbal phrase consists of a non-finite verb and the words that modify it. For example, in the sentence ‘when examined carefully, the substance did not seem to be harmful’, ‘examined’, a past participle, is paired with ‘carefully’, an adverb. Remember, verbs form the core of the sentence, usually doing most of its work.

Verb Tenses, Verb Moods and Voice of Verbs.

Let’s now look at the tense, mood, and voice of verbs.

Tense relates to the time expressed by the verb. There are three main tenses:

• Past, for things that have already happened;

• Present, for things that are happening right now;

• Future, for things that have not yet taken place.

Each of these three tenses can be further modified by four aspects. These aspects are

• simple, for recurring actions;

• continuous, for ongoing actions at precise moments;

• perfect, for completed past action leading to present events;

• perfect continuous, for actions that have been, or will have been, going on, until now or then, but ended or will end.

Tense can also be further modified by voice, which we will be covering later in this lecture. Your Course Resources contain a table that clearly shows these various tenses in relation to the verb ‘keep’.

The mood of a verb can be declarative, imperative, interrogative, or subjunctive. The mood of a verb depends on whether it is a statement, a command, or a question. In the sentences ‘I like that cat’; ‘do you like that cat?’, we see two examples. ‘I like that cat’ is declarative, or indicative, and shows, suggests, or states that I am fond of that cat. The second sentence, ‘do you like that cat?’, is interrogative, as I wish to determine your feelings on that particular cat.

‘Be kind to that cat!’ is a command, and, therefore, takes the imperative mood. Disregard imperative sentences at your peril.

The conditional sentence, ‘If I were that cat, I would think myself lucky’, is in the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive mood is of interest, because some grammarians regard it as antiquated but many writers still use it.

The subjunctive mood is used for things that might happen, could happen, should happen, or that I wish would happen. These can include conditional statements, suppositions, wishes, demands, commands, suggestions, proposals, and statements of necessity.

Some examples of the subjunctive mood include: ‘If only it were so’; ‘if I were you’; ‘long live the Queen’. The subjunctive mood affects the form of the verb. For example, ‘am’ or ‘was’ become ‘were’, ‘is’ becomes ‘be’ and ‘are’ becomes ‘be’. Additionally, singular verbs lose their ‘–s’ and ‘–es’ endings. Let’s take a look at some other examples.

‘We recommend that the department reform its financial systems’.

‘It is imperative that the copywriter be able to…’

Voice is the property of a verb that tells whether the subject acts or is acted upon.

A verb is in the active voice when the subject of the sentence is the doer or agent of the act. For example: ‘I wrote a book’, where I am the agent carrying out an action. A verb is in the passive voice when its subject is acted upon. The passive voice will always consist of a part of the verb to be; ‘am, is, was, are, were, been, or being’, plus a past participle. If you think a verb is in the passive voice, look for a hidden actor. Often, the by-agent—that is, who is actually performing the action—is not expressed. It might simply be understood or implied. If you can put ‘by goblins’ after the verb, the sentence is passive. An example would be: ‘The magic was woven by the grammar goblins’.

Also, check whether what you think is a passive verb can be converted straightforwardly into the active voice. Only verbs that can be used transitively—that is, take a direct object—can be converted to the passive.

The impersonal passive is very common in the corporate world. Common sentences that you may be familiar with include ‘It was decided’ and ‘it was agreed’. Another example: ‘It is felt that your proposal is not able to be funded’. This particular sentence is a double passive. Another example of the double passive is this: ‘Athletes who are found to have taken drugs will be dropped from the squad’. This sentence does not explicitly state who discovers the athletes taking drugs or who drops them from the squad.

The passive voice can be useful when you need to soften the tone of a message. For example: ‘It has been decided that your report needs to be re-worked and re-submitted’, or when you don’t know who the agent is.

Passive voice can also be used to avoid taking direct responsibility for something. This is called the exonerative passive. Here is an excerpt from the book ‘Acqua Alta’ by Donna Leon that demonstrates the exonerative passive.

‘Do you know if Signor La Capra is living in the palazzo now?’

‘Yes, he is. In fact, he’s called us in a few times to take care of details that were overlooked in the last weeks of work.’ Ah, Brunetti thought, the ever-useful passive voice: the details had been ‘overlooked’; Scattalon’s workmen had not overlooked them. What a wondrous thing was language.

The passive voice can be used to great effect, but it must be done as a deliberate choice. Do not make passive voice your default. Try to use active verbs as much as you can in your writing.