English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
A5.1 Verb forms
A5 Verbs and their forms
Section A. Introduction
Verbs are an open word class (see B1). In terms of grammar (rather than lexis) they are the most important word class because they are the central element in clauses (see A7); each full clause must have a verb, and they determine what other elements will be present. In this book, auxiliary verbs are treated as a separate word class (’auxiliaries’) as they are a closed class (see A6). It is main (or lexical) verbs that are the topic of this section.
Traditionally, verbs are said typically to denote actions. There are two problems with this. First, nouns such as running, singing, fight or laughter also denote or imply actions. Second, many verbs are not to do with actions. They can also be to do with events, processes, states, relationships, and so on:
The building collapsed.
It snowed yesterday.
I want some chocolate.
I have three sisters
In other words, verbs do not just denote actions.
Activity A5.1
Identify the verb forms in the paragraph above beginning ’Traditionally . . .’. Don’t worry about repetitions.
As regards formal features, verbs can be recognised by the following characteristics:
□ they inflect for tense, for the third-person singular, and for the -ing and -ed participles
□ they agree with, and usually follow, the subject when there is no auxiliary (’agreement’ - see A8)
□ they form verb phrases, either on their own or in combination with auxiliaries, where they represent the ’head’ (see A6)
□ they precede objects
It is the first point, their inflections, that is of interest in this section.
A5.1 Verb forms
Verbs have fairly extensive inflectional morphology; they have more possible regular variations than either nouns or adjectives. In addition there is much more irregularity.
Verbs can have between three and eight different forms (or parts).
Activity A5.2
Can you guess which verb has the most forms? Can you list the forms and label them?
Terminology
Two of the labels above may have surprised you. Instead of ’-ing participle’ and ’-ed participle’ you may be familiar with ’present participle’ and ’past participle’. However, I have dropped these terms because there is nothing ’present’ or ’past’ about the forms they represent. The present and past nature of verb phrases is conveyed by the tense forms, not by the participles. Even though ’-ed participle’ is not entirely accurate (because not all such forms are formed with -ed), it is still a better label.
Regular and irregular verbs
There is an important distinction between ’regular’ and ’irregular’ verbs. Regular verbs have four forms; if the basic form is known, the other three can be predicted from it. These three are:
□ the third person singular, which is formed by adding -s or -es to the basic form (see B2 for a discussion of person);
□ the -ing participle, which is formed by adding -ing (and deleting silent e);
□ the past tense and -ed participle, which have the same form, namely with the addition of -ed or -d.
See the Website Reference A5.1 and A5.2 for the rules governing the spelling and pronunciation of regular verb forms.
The table below shows the forms of one typical regular verb, like, with those of one irregular verb, know, as well as those for be, for comparison.
Table A5.1.1 Forms of regular and irregular verbs
Irregular verbs have between three and five forms (and eight in the case of be). The third person singular and -ing participle are predictable, as with regular verbs. However, the forms of the past tense (usually) and -ed participle (always) are not predictable. This explains why we have to list three forms when trying to remember how to use irregular verbs. Here are a few examples:
There are about 150 irregular verbs in English (more, if we count archaic forms). Some are them are rare (e.g. forsake, forsook, forsaken), but many of them are very common, such as those above. A list is given in the Website Reference section.
There are a number of ways to make some sense out of this irregularity. If we divide up the verbs according to the differences between the basic form, past tense and -ed participle, there are five patterns:
A. where all three forms are the same:
put, put, put
spread, spread, spread
This occurs with some verbs ending in /d/ or /t/.
B. where the base and the past tense are the same. This is very rare.
C. where the base and -ed participle are the same: come, came, come
This is quite rare.
D. where the past tense and -ed participle are the same
have, had, had
find, found, found
lead, led, led
Note that the two forms, though the same, are not predictable from the basic form. This type of irregular verb is very common.
E. where all three forms are different
drink, drank, drunk
speak, spoke, spoken blow, blew, blown
As exemplified by types A and D above, the past tense and -ed participle forms of most irregular verbs are the same.
Another way to categorise irregular verbs is according to vowel changes, for example:
swim, swam, swum
sing, sang, sung
sink, sank, sunk
but this is limited, and there are verbs which look deceptively similar: swing, swung (not swang), swung.
Some verbs vary between regularity and irregularity. Thus speed has the regular form speeded for both past tense and -ed participle as well as sped; spill likewise has both spilt and spilled and leap has leaped and leapt. Such verbs are all indicated in the Website Reference section.
Variation in english
Gotten is preferred in American English to the British English got as the past participle of get.