Verbs
Verbs include doing, thinking and saying words as well as states of being and having.
Verbs are an essential part of a clause.
| They ran up the hill. | doing or action verb |
| Aidan rode the horse. | doing or action verb |
| He was worried about the test. | thinking verb |
| Emily knows the way to the showground. | thinking verb |
| She spoke softly to her cat. | saying verb |
| All the boys had been told what to do. | saying verb |
| The fireman is in the house. | being or having verb |
| Aisha has had a bad fever. | being or having verb |
Verbs have a tense.
This means they show whether the action is taking place in the present, in the past or in the future.
| Present tense | I am polishing the table |
| Past tense | I polished the table |
| Future tense | I will polish the table |
Verbs can be divided into four different groups:
Action verbs - He ran down the hill. Penny climbed the ladder.
Thinking verbs - I understand. Carol believed him.
Saying verbs - I said yes. She yelled at me. Chris suggested another way.
Having or being verbs - Matt has the answer. Nick was here but Ned is here now.
The verbs above stand alone. They are the main verbs.
There are many verbs that are made up of a main verb and one or more helping verbs.
These helping verbs are called auxiliary verbs.
Sue is painting the house.
They will be leaving for America tomorrow
He should be coming soon.
Verb groups with one or more auxiliary verbs are called compound verbs
Voice - verbs can be active or passive.
Active voice:
Charles collected the parcel
Here Charles (the subject) does the action. Collected is the active form of the verb
The active voice focuses on the person or thing doing the action.
Passive voice:
The parcel was collected by Charles.
Here the parcel is having the action done to it. Was collected is the passive form of the verb.
The passive voice focuses on the person or thing affected by the action.
Infinitives:
The infinitive is the name of the verb. Eg. To win, to visit, to ride.
Infinitives usually begin with the word to and are not the main verbs in a sentence.
They came to visit their friend.
To find the lost treasure was going to be difficult
She ran quickly to win the race.
The infinitive often does the work of other parts of speech.
The horse to ride is in the paddock
"to ride" describes the horse. Describing words are adjectives.
To visit his neighbours he rode his new bike.
"to visit" tells why he rode. Words which tell why how when and where are adverbs.
Participles:
Another type of verb is the participle.
There are past participles and present participles.
Regular verbs are those verbs which use ed, d, en, n or t to form the past participle and ing to form the present participle.
Past participles usually follow has, have, had or was.
| Verb | Past participle | Present participle |
| jump | (have) jumped | (am) jumping |
| cry | (had) cried | (is) crying |
Irregular verbs are those which form the present participle in a different way.
| Verb | Past participle | Present participle |
| ring | (have) rung | (am) ringing |
| buy | (have) bought | (am) buying |
