Verbs

Question 1

Lexical (main) verb

Answer 1

The main verb is the one which carries lexical meaning, that is, the meaning you would find in the dictionary. (e.g. I like tea.) Like can be found under letter ‘l’ and has a definition.

Question 2

Auxiliary verb

Answer 2

An auxiliary verb is a helper verb. It has no lexical meaning of its own but which helps us form questions, negative sentences, and so on. (e.g. …. but I don’t like coffee, are you driving?, I’ve been to America). Don’t, are and ‘ve (contracted form or ‘have’) though verbs, cannot be looked up in a dictionary, and they only have meaning in conjunction with other constituents of the sentence.

Question 3

Modal auxiliary

Answer 3

Modal Auxiliary Verbs are helping verbs or auxiliary verbs such as will, shall, may, might, can, could, must, ought to, should, would, used to, need and are used in conjunction with main verbs to express shades of time and mood. They express a specific function such as permission, obligation, lack of necessity, possibility, ability, prohibition,advice and probability

Question 4

Transitive/Intransitive verb

Answer 4

An action verb with a direct object is transitive while an action verb with no direct object is intransitive. Some verbs, such as arrive, go, lie, sneeze, sit, and die, are always intransitive; it is impossible for a direct object to follow.

Question 5

Multi-word verb

Answer 5

Multi-word verbs are verbs which consist of a verb and one or two particles or prepositions (e.g. up, over, in, down). There are three types of multi-word verbs: phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs and phrasal-prepositional verbs.

Question 6

Phrasal Verb

Answer 6

A phrasal verb is a verb that is made up of a main verb together with an adverb or a preposition, or both. Typically, their meaning is not obvious from

Question 7

Gerund

Answer 7

The gerund looks exactly the same as a present participle,(eat + ing) but it is useful to understand the difference between the two. The gerund always has the same function as a noun (although it looks like a verb) and can be used as the subject or object of a sentence. (e.g. Dancing is good physical exercise. My father loved fishing)

Question 8

Infinitive

Answer 8

An infinitive will almost always begin with ‘to’ followed by the simple form of the verb, like this: To + Verb = Infinitive Important Note: Because an infinitive is not a verb, you cannot add s, es, ed, or ing to the end. Ever!

Question 9

Bare infinitive

Answer 9

The word ‘to’ is frequently used with an infinitive, but it is not an essential part or sign of it. When an infinitive is used without the marker ‘to’ it is called a bare infinitive. The infinitive is used without ‘to’ after certain verbs like bid, let, make, see, hear, need, dare.

Question 10

Full infinitive

Answer 10

The form without ‘to’ is called the bare infinitive, and the form with ‘to’ is called the full infinitive or ‘to’-infinitive.

Question 11

Split infinitive

Answer 11

A split infinitive or cleft infinitive is a grammatical construction in which a word or phrase comes between the ‘to’ and the bare infinitive of the ‘to’ form of the infinitive verb. Usually an adverb or adverbial phrase comes between them. A well-known example occurs in the opening sequence of the Star Trek television series: “to boldly go where no man has gone before”; the adverb ‘boldly’ is said to split the infinitive to go. Sometimes more than one word splits the infinitive, as in: “The population is expected to more than double in the next ten years”.

Question 12

Base form

Answer 12

The base form (or root) of a verb is the form listed in the dictionary. It is the version of the verb without any endings (endings such as -s, -ing, and ed). The base form is the same as the infinitive (e.g., to walk, to paint, to think) but without the ‘to’.

Question 13

Finite/Non-finite

Answer 13

Finite verb forms show tense, person and number ( e.g. I go, she goes, we went, etc.): She was waiting in the room before he came in. Does your brother know my brother? Non-finite verb forms do not show tense, person or number. Typically they are infinitive forms with and without to (e.g. to go, go), -ing forms and -ed forms (e.g. going, gone): She tiptoed round the house so as not to wake anyone

Question 14

Present participle

Answer 14

The present participle is a participle that ends in ing. It can be used with the auxilliary verb ‘to be’ to form the continuous tense. It always takes the ‘ing’ form of the verb, even irregular verbs have an ‘…ing’ form, in fact virtually all English words that end with ‘ing’ are present participles. (e.g. She is sitting, I was having). The present participle can also be used as an adjective.(e.g. It was an amazing film. Images of a burning house.)

Question 15

Past participle

Answer 15

The past participle (or the third form) of a verb is a form that is usually the same as the past form and so ends in ‘-ed’. A number of verbs have irregular past participles, (e.g. break - broken, and come - come). These forms are used to form the Perfect (I have been to Malta) and Passive tenses (The fish was eaten by the cat) of verbs. The past participle can also be used as an adjective. (e.g. a disappointed customer, an unsung hero.)

Question 16

Verb phrase

Answer 16

A verb phrase is one headed by a verb. It may be composed of only a single verb, but typically it consists of combinations of main and auxiliary verbs, plus optional specifiers, complements (not including subject complements), and adjuncts.(e.g. He lied, she was singing, running on the wet floor, she slipped and broke her arm). Thus in the sentence: ‘A fat man put the money quickly in the box’. the words ‘put the money quickly in the box’ are a verb phrase; it consists of the verb ‘put’ and its dependents, but not the subject ‘a fat man’. A verb phrase is similar to what is considered a ‘predicate’ in more traditional grammars.

Question 17

Copula

Answer 17

A copular verb is a special kind of verb used to join an adjective or noun complement to a subject. Common examples are: be (is, am, are, was, were), appear, seem, look, sound, smell, taste, feel, become and get. (e.g. ‘Peter is my boyfriend’ the copular verb is asserts that Peter and my boyfriend are the same person whereas in the sentence ‘Peter is British’ the copular verb is assigns the quality of Britishness to Peter).
Other examples are: The milk turned sour. She became a writer. After copular verbs we use adjectives, not adverbs. Compare: * She spoke intelligently. (Here the adverb ‘intelligently’ modifies the ordinary verb spoke.) * She appears intelligent. (NOT She appears intelligently. Appears is a copular verb. It should be followed by an adjective, not an adverb.)

Question 18

Interrogative

Answer 18

An interrogative has the form of a question rather than a statement or command. e.g.“Did you go to school today?” is an interrogative sentence. An interrogative pronoun is used to ask a question such as ‘who’ in the question, ‘Who is your doctor?’

Question 19

Negative

Answer 19

The negative verb forms are made by putting ‘not’ after an auxiliary verb. * She has invited us. (Affirmative) * She has not invited us. (Negative) * It was raining. (Affirmative) * It was not raining. (Negative) * She can knit. (Affirmative) * She cannot knit. (Negative) If there is no auxiliary verb, ‘do’ is used to make the negative verb forms. * I like reading. (Affirmative) * I do not like reading. (Negative) Note that ‘do’ is followed by an infinitive without ‘to’. * She didn’t come. (NOT She didn’t to come.) ‘Do’ is not normally used if there is another auxiliary verb.You should not go. (NOT You don’t should go.)

Question 20

Affirmative

Answer 20

Essentially an affirmative (positive) form is used to express the validity or truth of a basic assertion, while a negative form expresses its falsity. Examples are the sentences “Jane is here” and “Jane is not here”; the first is affirmative, while the second is negative.

Question 21

Imperative

Answer 21

Imperative sentences are used to issue a command or instruction, make a request, or offer advice. Basically, they tell people what to do. Imperative sentences usually end with a period but can occasionally end with an exclamation point. (e.g. Close the window. Book the tickets early. Shut up!)

Question 22

Indicative

Answer 22

The indicative mood is a verb form which makes a statement or asks a question. For example: * Jack sings every Friday. (This is a verb in the indicative mood.) * Sing us a song, Jack. (This verb is not in the indicative mood. It is in the imperative mood. The vast majority of sentences are in the indicative mood. Some more examples of the Indicative: * The sky is clear tonight. * She stopped during the third lap. * The aliens will be unable to breathe our air. * Is that a whelk? * That was tasty. Did you like it?

Question 23

Subjunctive

Answer 23

The subjunctive is a specific verb form. It usually expresses something that you wish for, or a hypothetical rather than actual situation: * If only I were ten years younger. * I only wish that what you say were true. It is also used to indicate that something is being suggested or demanded: * The report recommends that he face the tribunal. * It is important that they be aware of the provisions of the Act. In modern English it is distinguished from other verb forms a) by the use of ‘be’ and ‘were’ instead of the indicative forms (am/is/are/was) as in the example above; and b) by lacking the final letter ‘-s’ of the third person singular (he/she/it) in the present tense (in the example above he face, not he faces).

Question 24

Regular/Irregular

Answer 24

An English verb can be regular or irregular. Regular verbs form their past and past participle forms by adding –ed. Examples are given below. Walk – walked – walked Dance – danced – danced
Irregular verbs form their past and past participle forms in different ways. There are mainly three types of irregular verbs. Verbs in which all the three forms are the same (e.g. put – put – put) Verbs in which two of the three forms are the same (e.g. sit – sat – sat) Verbs in which all three forms are different (e.g. drink – drank – drunk).

Question 25

Reporting verb

Answer 25

Reporting verbs are used to report what someone said more accurately than using ‘say & tell’. * He refused to take his coat off. * She reminded me to telephone my mother. * She suggested meeting a little earlier * They congratulated me on passing all my exams. As can be noticed from the examples above reporting verbs can be followed by a number of grammatical structures.

Question 26

Question tag

Answer 26

A tag question (also known as tail question) is a grammatical structure in which a declarative or an imperative statement is turned into interrogative fragment (the “tag”). For example, in the sentence “You’re John, aren’t you?”, the statement “You’re John” is turned into a question by the tag”aren’t you”.

Question 27

Stative and dynamic meaning

Answer 27

Verbs in English can be classified into two categories: stative verbs and dynamic verbs. Dynamic verbs (sometimes referred to as “action verbs”) usually describe actions we can take, or things that happen; * The snow melts every spring * She is playing tennis at the moment. * Jack had been practising his music scales before mum arrived. Dynamic verbs can be used in the simple, continuous and perfect forms.
Stative verbs usually refer to a state or condition which is not changing or likely to change. * He owns three motorbikes. * I hate chocolate. * As a child Janet believed in ghosts. Stative verbs usually refer to a state or condition which is quite static or unchanging. They can be divided into verbs of perception or cognition (which refer to things in the mind), or verbs of relation (which describe the relationships between things). These verbs cannot be used in any continuous tense.

Question 28

Tense

Answer 28

Tenses denote the time of action. They show when the work is done. They are: (1)Present Tense (2)Past Tense (3)Future Tense and are further divided into different aspects e.g. present simple and continuous.

Question 29

Contraction

Answer 29

Since the word contract means to squeeze together, it seems only logical that a contraction is two words made shorter by placing an apostrophe where letters have been omitted. Examples of common contractions in the English language include: I’m - I am. You’d - you would/you had. He’s - he is/he has.

Question 30

Particle

Answer 30

A particle is a word that has a grammatical function but does not fit into the main parts of speech (i.e. noun, verb, adverb). Particles do not change. The infinitive ‘to’ in ‘to fly’ is an example of a particle, although ‘to’, in another situation, can also act as a preposition, e.g. ‘I’m going to Spain next week’.

Question 31

Participles

Answer 31

A Participle is a word formed from a verb and used after the auxilliary to form compound verbs (e.g. is going, has gone, were being, have been). If is also used as an adjective (e.g. working woman, burnt toast ) or a noun (e.g. good breeding ).