Verb & Verb Forms

Verbs are sometimes thought of as ‘doing’ or ‘action’ words. For example:

• He walks to work.
• I am a student.

There are many verbs in English. Here are some examples:

• Write, walk, drive, smile, complain, eat, sleep… and many more…

Verb Forms

Verbs appear in one of the four forms: present simple, past simple, present participle and past participle. For example:

• I walk to work every morning.
  (Here the verb is in its present simple form)
• I walked to the pub last night.
  (Here the verb is in its past simple form)
• I was walking to a restaurant when you called me.
  (Here the verb is in its present participle form)
• I had walked in that park before.
  (Here the verb is in its past participle form, which is used after the verbs ‘have’ and ‘be’. It is the same as past simple for regular verbs but it can be different for irregular verbs)

Notice that verbs do not appear in a future form. There is no future verb for walk or any other verb in the English language. When we want to talk about a walk in the future, we often say, we will walk or we are going to walk. We will deal with future tense constructions in greater detail in the next module.

Regular Verbs vs Irregular Verbs

There are about 200 verbs in English that are irregular, that is, they don’t conform to the usual “-ed” past simple and/or past participle construction. Here are some examples:

• I eat breakfast every morning.
  (Past simple: ate, Past participle: eaten)
• I go for a run before breakfast.
  ( Past simple: went, Past participle: gone )
• I drink coffee around 9.00 am.
  ( Past simple: drank, Past participle: drunk )
• I get the paper every morning.
  ( Past simple: got , Past participle: got or gotten )
• He spends a lot of money.
  ( Past simple: spent , Past participle: spent )

Auxiliary Verbs: Primary

Sometimes, you will find sentences where there are two verbs close together. One will usually be the main verb and one will be the auxiliary verb. The auxiliary verb usually comes before the main verb. Only a few verbs are used as auxiliary verbs in the English language. They are sometimes thought of as supporting verbs.

1. Primary
There are three Primary Auxiliary verbs in English:

• Be
• Have
• Do

They can be used as main verbs. Look at the following sentences:

• I am Mark.
  (from the verb ‘be’)
• I have a good job.
  (from the verb ‘have’)
• They do a lot of work.
  (from the verb ‘do’)

They can also be used as auxiliary verbs.

We use be (was / were / are / am / is) as an auxiliary verb when we construct structures where the tense is continuous. Look at the following sentences using watch as the main verb:

• I was watching IPL last week.
• I am watching IPL tonight.
• Christineis watching IPL with me.

We use have (have / has / had) as an auxiliary verb when we construct structures where the tense is perfect. Look at the following sentences using eat as the main verb:

• I have eaten pizza.
• Has Martin eaten pizza?
• When I arrived at the restaurant, Martin had eaten all the sushi.

We use do (do / did / does) for question forms, negative sentences and for emphasis. Look at the following sentences using like as the main verb:

• Do you like chocolate?
• Martin didn’t like chocolate when he was young.

·         Yes, Martin does like chocolate!

Auxiliary Verbs: Modal

2. Modal

There are 11 true modal verbs in the English language. In the sentences below those verbs are in bold:

• I can play the piano.
  (Main verb: play)
• Could you close the door please?
  (Main verb: close)
• May I use the bathroom?
  (Main verb: use)
• I might visit my friends in Japan next year.
  (Main verb: visit)
• I must finish this book.
  (Main verb: finish)
• I will do the washing up.
  (Main verb: do)
• I would speak to him, if I were you.
  (Main verb: speak)
• You should eat more fruit.
  (Main verb: eat)
• Cinderella shall go to the ball.
  (Main verb: go)
• I ought to be careful of my weight.
  (Main verb: be)
• I used to ride my bike so much when I was younger.
  (Main verb: ride)

If you look at these sentences you will recognize that there are certain things that modal verbs cannot do:

They don’t work as past tense verbs. For example: ‘canned’ – ‘coulded’ – ‘mayed’ – ‘mighted’ – ‘musted’. (However there are a couple of exceptions to this rule that we will look at later in this course.)

They don’t work as continuous or –ing form verbs. For example: ‘shoulding’ – ‘shalling’ – ‘oughting to’ – ‘useding to’.

They can’t stand alone as main verbs. For example: ‘I can the piano’ – ‘could you the door?’ – ‘May I the bathroom?’ – ‘I might my friends next year.’

You cannot create an infinitive form with modal verbs. That is, you can’t place the word “to” in front of them. For example: ‘to can’ – ‘to would’ – ‘to shall’ – ‘to ought to’ – ‘to must’ – ‘to should’.