1. Verbs should do most of the work in a sentence.

They describe
the state of being of the subject of a sentence : ‘I am a writer’, express an
action : ‘I wrote a book’,
or describe an occurrence of the subject of a sentence : 'something terrible
happened'.

: 'I am here in the studio so that I can record this week’s introduction to verbs',
where 'am' and 'can record' are verbs.

2. Verbs are divided into two classes: finite and non-finite. We’ll first deal with
finite.

3. The base form of a verb is what you see in a dictionary. It will have the marker
‘to’ in front of it.
: ‘to read’ or ‘to watch’.

4. Finite verbs can be joined by linking verbs and helping verbs. They are
classified as either transitive or intransitive, according to whether or not they
act upon an object in the sentence.

5. Verbs form the tense of a sentence, which indicates the time of the action.

6. They can also express mood - that is, whether a sentence is a statement, an
order, or expresses a potentiality or something hypothetical.

7. Finally, verbs can indicate whether the subject of a sentence

is acting or being acted upon. This is called the voice of the verb.

8. Linking, or copular, verbs link a subject with a complement that describes or

explains it, restates the subject, or describes its state of being. They include
sensory verbs, like
: hear, look, taste, smell, feel,
and verbs such as
: be, appear, seem, become, grow, remain, stay, prove, sound, and turn (when
referring to a state or condition).

9. For example, in ‘Agatha seems intrigued', 'seems' is a verb linking the subject,
'Agatha', with her state of being, 'intrigued'. Other examples include
: 'we remain committed to our cause'
and
: 'you appear to have arrived'.

10. Helping, or auxiliary, verbs assist in forming tenses when combined with a main
verb. Parts of the verb ‘to be’, the verb ‘to do’, and the verb ‘to have’ are the
primary auxiliary verbs.

NOTE #1:
The verb "to be" has eight different forms:
Present: am, is, are
Simple past: was, were
Infinitive: be
Present participle: being
Past participle: been

NOTE #2:
The verb "to do" has five different forms:
Base form: do
Third-person singular: does
Past tense: did
Past participle: done
Present participle: doing
It can function as both a main verb and an auxiliary verb.

NOTE #3:
The verb "to have" can function as a main verb or a helping verb. The forms of "to
have" are have, has, had, and having.
"To have" can mean:
Possess/own
Eat or drink
Take or receive
Do/experience something
Make something happen
As an auxiliary verb for perfect tenses.

11. In the sentence, ‘I am getting used to the dragon’, 'am', a part of the verb
'to be', is a helping verb, as are 'have' and 'do' in the following sentences.
: I do like the dragon.
: I have fed the dragon.

12. Modal auxiliary verbs, or simply modal verbs, indicate modality.

13. When combined with a base verb form they suggest a condition, need, likelihood
or probability, requirement or obligation, ability, or permission.

14. For example, in the sentence ‘you should read this book next’, 'should' is a
modal auxiliary verb. It combines with 'read', the main verb, and indicates a
suggestion or obligation.

15. Transitive verbs are verbs that express an action carried out on one or more
objects. While they require a direct object to complete their meaning, they can
also relate to an indirect object.
: ‘I made a cake.’ 'Made' is a transitive verb because it takes
on the direct object cake.
: ‘I wrote the Queen a letter’, 'wrote' is a transitive verb,
'letter' is the direct object, and 'Queen' is an indirect object.

16. Intransitive verbs don’t require an object to complete their meaning. They are
complete in themselves.
: ‘ice melts in the sun’, the word 'melts' is an intransitive verb. It describes
what the ice does, but not in relation to any object.
: ‘My dog lay down on the floor’ could just as well read ‘my dog lay down’, whereas
‘I made a cake’ could not rightly read ‘I made’.

Let’s move now on to other kinds of verbs.

17. Verb phrases are compound verbs. That is, they comprise a main verb and a
helping verb.
: 'I can read', 'the film has started', 'I have been there', et cetera, where the
main verbs are 'read', 'started', and 'been',
and the helping verbs are 'can', 'has', and 'have'.

18. Not to be confused with verb phrases, which we have just looked at, phrasal
verbs, or prepositional verbs, as they are sometimes known, are very different.

19. A phrasal verb is a two-or three-word verb consisting of a main verb plus a
preposition or adverb vital to the meaning of that verb.

20. Note that you must take care never to hyphenate a phrasal verb.
: ‘let’s turn on the light’, or ‘I’ll climb up that tree’ as examples, where the
words 'turn on' and 'climb up' are phrasal verbs.

21. Non-finite verbs, also referred to as verbals, consist of the infinitive,

participle, and gerund verb forms.

22. Unlike finite verbs, they can’t complete an independent clause nor
does their form change.

23. Participles can be either present or past tense, and require the addition of a
helping verb to make a verb phrase.

24. The present participle always ends in ‘-ing’, such as in the sentence ‘I am
riding north tonight’. In this example, 'am' is the helping verb and 'riding' is
the present participle.

25. The past participle ends in '-d' or '-ed' most of the time, but can have an
irregular ending, such as '-t'.
: ‘I have cooked dinner tonight’, cooked is the past participle.
: ‘I have broken my curfew’, broken is the past participle, and, as you
can see, has an irregular ending.
: ‘bored students need extra work to do’ is an example of how a past participle—in
this case 'bored'—can function as an adjective.

26. The gerund is a non-finite verb that always ends in ‘-ing’, and always
functions as a noun.
: ‘swimming can be therapeutic’, the gerund 'swimming', acts
as a noun.
: The same goes for 'dancing', as in ‘Boris loves dancing’.

27. Both present participles and gerunds end in ‘-ing’. Whether a verb is a present
participle or a gerund depends on its function in a sentence.

28. Some grammarians call both gerunds and participles ‘gerund-participles’.

29. Our last non-finite verb form is the infinitive. The infinitive form of a verb
is its ‘base' form, and is most often introduced by the marker ‘to’.
: ‘I want to breed show ponies’.

30. Some people believe that it’s wrong to split an infinitive. This rule came
about because the infinitive in Latin is a single word, and so cannot be split.

31. In English, the infinitive is two words, and so can be freely split, as in ‘TO
boldly GO’, or ‘TO gradually DISPERSE.'

32. Recall that non-finite verbs are sometimes called verbals. A verbal phrase
consists of a non-finite verb and the words that modify it.
: ‘when examined carefully, the substance did not seem to be harmful’, 'examined',
a past participle, is paired with 'carefully', an adverb.
Remember, verbs form the core of the sentence, usually doing most of its work.