Unit 3: Verbs_three be verbs-CSDN博客

VERBS

As you are learning in this unit, sentences are complete thoughts that need three things:

subject
verb
punctuation

Now that you’ve studied subjects and the role they play in sentences, you will study verbs to see what role they play in sentences. Verbs can perform many functions.

1. Verbs describe action or link another part of speech to the subject to indicate the state of being/condition of the subject.

Since verbs denote action or link a noun, pronoun, adjective, or a phrase to the subject, verbs are the words that describe what the subjects in sentences are doing or what state of being or condition they are in. Look at these five sentences:

	S	V
The	man	jumps	for	joy.	(jumps denotes action)

	S	V		N
The	man	is	my	father.	(is links father, a noun, to man)

	S	V	P
The	man	is	he.	(is links he, a subject pronoun, to man)

	S	V	ADJ
The	man	is	joyful.	(is links joyful, an adjective, to man)

	S	V	PREP P
The	man	is	in the living room.	(is links in the living room, a prepositional phrase, to man)

Without verbs, these sentences would make no sense, as the actors (the subjects in sentences) would not have anything to do or to be.

Verbs describe what the subject of a sentence does or what the subject of the sentence is. To better understand the difference between verbs that denote action and verbs that denote condition or a state of being, carefully read and study the information below.

Action verbs make up the majority of verbs. Action verbs, like nouns, are considered an open category because new ones emerge and old ones change all the time. For example, the abbreviation MOOC, which stands for Massive Open Online Course, can be used as a noun: “I’m enrolled in a MOOC.” But you could also use the abbreviation as a verb: “Please, don’t bother me right now; I am moocing.” There are hundreds and hundreds of these words that show an action. Below are just a few examples:

The phone rang loudly in the den.
They dance the Tango well together.
The little girl laughed joyfully at the scene.
The team plays aggressively all the time.
His cell phone dropped unexpectedly into the water.
The couple happily smiles at each other.
The child slurps his drink quickly and noisily.
The father sits silently in the darkened living room.
The children chase the dog around the yard.
My computer crashed last night around midnight.

You see how each verb in these sentences describes an action performed by the subject.

Linking verbs are few in number and are considered a closed category, like the pronouns. Instead of denoting action, a linking verb connects the subject of a sentence to additional information about the subject, such as the condition or state of being of the subject. Look at the examples below. The linking verb is in bold in each sentence.

The teacher feels ill.
The dogs sound lonely.
The food tastes salty.
The cats seem agitated by the attention.
I appear short in that photo.
Your perfume smells lovely.
The bottles remain unopened.
The woman is my mother-in-law.
The flowers outside my window grow taller each day.

Each verb links the subject to information that comes after the verb.

There are several linking verbs that are true linking verbs, for they can only be linking verbs, and there are several verbs that can be linking verbs or action verbs. Because linking verbs are a closed category, a complete list of them is possible. Below is a largely complete list.

May Be Linking Verbs (but can also show action)	Always Linking Verbs
feel	be (and all its forms)
grow	become
look	seem
appear
remain
smell
sound
stay
taste
turn
prove

A simple test exists that you can use to determine whether or not a verb is a linking verb. If you can replace the verb in a sentence with the words am, is, or are, and the sentence still makes sense, then the verb is a linking verb. If you replace the verb with am, is, or are, and it does not make sense, then the verb is an action verb.

Try this. Replace the bolded verb in each of the sentences below with the words am , is , or are .

The teacher feels ill.
The dogs sound lonely.
The food tastes salty.
The cats seem agitated by the attention.
I appear short in that photo.
Your perfume smells lovely.

Notice how the sentences still make sense? If the sentence still sounds logical, then you know the verb is a linking verb.

Now replace the bolded verbs in the sentences below with am , is or are .

Mom always tastes her food before she serves it.
I smell smoke in the air.
He felt the sides of the box for an opening.
They proved the oil pipeline leaked.
The family stays home to eat dinner together.
Juan and Tan grow flowers outside their window.

Writers make good use of linking verbs, especially those verbs that are connected to human senses—smell, taste, feel, and look. Anytime you can include human sense details in your sentences do so because the addition enables you to connect with the reader more directly. For example, a linking verb like felt invites you to finish the thought:

He felt ...

ill.
happy.
like going to a movie.
as if he had been ripped off.

Helping or auxiliary verbs help describe the main verb. There are nine helping verbs that are always helping verbs; they are never the main verb. These helping verbs are:

May	Might	Must
Could	Would	Should
Can	Will	Shall

Study the following sentences. The helping verb is bolded and the main verb is underlined.

You should not cook with metal pans in a microwave oven.
The cell phone could easily fit in the oversized purse.
We will need help harvesting from the neighbors.
The student must visit the library to check out the book.

Together, the helping verb and the main verb are called the complete verb.

There are three verbs, be, do, and have, that can be either main verbs or helping verbs depending upon their usage. The forms of these three verbs that can be either main or helping verbs are:

Be	Is	Are	Was	Were	Be	Being	Been
Do	Do	Does	Did
Have	Has	Have	Had

Again, study the sentences below. In the first three, a form of be, do, and have is used as a main verb. In the second three sentences, the same form of be, do, and have is used as a helping verb.

She was a fearsome giant, Jörd from Norse mythology.
He does the dishes immediately after dinner.
They have a llama for a pet.
The child was fed by his sister.
She does call whenever necessary.
They have danced in the Awa Odori, the largest dance festival in
Japan.

With helping verbs, you can create a more precise verb because you are able to further clarify and control the verb’s meaning. You will use helping verbs to write the perfect, progressive, and perfect progressive verb tenses (see next section). You also use helping verbs to express subtle shifts of meaning in a sentence. For example,

Sarnia can go skating tomorrow.
Sarnia must go skating tomorrow.
Sarnia could go skating tomorrow.
Sarnia will go skating tomorrow.

Verbs are usually either regular or irregular. The best place to start with understanding the differences between regular and irregular verbs is by looking at the past and past participial forms of verbs and how those forms are made.

For regular verbs, the past and past participle forms are made by adding –ed to the present tense form. This rule applies to all regular verbs:

Present	Past	Past Participle	Present Participle
work	worked	worked	working
borrow	borrowed	borrowed	borrowing
grin	grinned	grinned	grinning
plant	planted	planted	planting
rush	rushed	rushed	rushing

For irregular verbs, the past and past participle forms do not follow the rules for regular verbs. The past participial forms of irregular verbs may end in –ed, -en, -e, -n, -t, -k, -g, and -d.

Present	Past	Past Participle	Present Participle
dive	dove	dived	diving
break	broke	broken	breaking
come	came	come	coming
see	saw	seen	seeing
put	put	put	putting
stick	stuck	stuck	sticking
dig	dug	dug	digging
lead	led	led	leading

The best way to learn the various principle parts of any verb is slowly through memorization.

A number of websites exist that offer extensive lists of irregular verbs, including the following: