Verb and Verbals

Learning objectives:

Define verb, transitive/intransitive verb, auxiliary verb, verbals, Infinitive, Gerund, Participle

Explain how to parse verb, Infinitive, Participle, Gerund

Analyze grammatical categories of the verb, the categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice and mood; the noun-infinitive/the qualifying infinitive

Key point:

Verb, it’s definition and parsing; Infinitive, it’s definition and parsing; Participle, it’s definition and parsing; Gerund, it’s definition and parsing

Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. This is due to the central role performs in the expression of the predicative functions of the sentence, i.e. the functions establishing the connection between the situation (situational event) named in the utterance and reality. The general categorial meaning of the verb is process presented dynamically, i.e. developing in time.

The grammatical categories of the verb are: 1) the category of finitude dividing the verb into finite and non-finite forms (the corresponding contracted names are “finites” and “verbids”, this category has a lexico-grammatical force); 2) the categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood.

Verb: a word used for stating a fact or condition, giving an order or a request, or asking a question.

Transitive: denotes an action that is directed towards some person or thing; as “he shot a crow”.

Intransitive: denotes an action that stops with the doer, and concerns no person or thing except the doer; as “he fell”.

Auxiliary: assists a Principal verb (which may be either Transitive or Intransitive) that form some tense or tenses in the Indicative or Subjunctive mood and in the Active or Passive voice; as “I have come”.

Voice

Active: when the verb is in the Active voice, the person or thing denoted by the Subject is said to do something, as “I love.”

Passive: when the verb is in the Passive voice, the person or thing denoted by the Subject is said to suffer something, as “I am loved”.

Finite Moods

Mood: the form assumed by a verb to show the mode or manner in which the action denoted by the verb is represented.

Indicative: asserts something as a fact, or as a condition, as “I come” “if he comes”. Or it enquires about something, as “Did he come?”

Imperative: commands, or advises, or begs for something, as come.

Subjunctive: expresses a condition, a purpose, or a wish, - any kind of contingency except a fact, as “if he come or should come” (condition), “that he may come” (purpose), “may he come!” (wish).

Tenses in the Finite Moods

Tense: the form assumed by a verb for showing (a) the time at which an event occurs, (b) the degree of completeness described to an event at the time of its occurrence.

Indefinite: denotes Present, Past, or Future time in its simplest form, making no-definite assertion about the degree of completeness or incompleteness to be ascribed to the event, as “I come”, “I came”, “I shall come”.

Continuous: denotes that the event (in Present, Past, or Future time) is not yet complete, but still going on, as “I am coming”, “I was coming”, “I shall be coming”.

Perfect: denotes that the event (in Present, Past, or Future time) is in a completed or perfect state, as “I have come”, “I had come”, “I shall have come”.

Perfect-Continuous: combines the force of the two preceding forms, as “I have been coming”, “I had coming”, “I shall have been coming”.

Person: a verb is in the First person when the subject of the verb denotes a person speaking: in the second person when it denotes a person spoken to: in the third person when it denotes a person (or thing) spoken of.