THE VERB

Definition:

A verb is an action or express word. It indicates the action or express in the present, past and future tenses.

THE PRINCIPAL PARTS OF VERBS

Verbs have four principal parts of verbs or fundamental forms that are used to create a tense

e.g.

Present	Past	Past Participle	Present Participle
abandon	abandoned	abandoned	abandoning
accept	accepted	accepted	accepting
go	went	gone	going
take	took	taken	taking
become	became	became	becoming
cut	cut	cut	cutting
read	read	read	reading
complete	completed	completed	completing
delete	deleted	deleted	deleting

AGREEMENT OF THE VERB WITH THE SUBJECT

Definition:

A verb must agree with its Subject in Number and Person. When we use a verb, we have to say who or what is doing the action. This ‘who or what’ is the subject of the verb. The subject and the verb agree when they match each other.

Singular Verb

Use a singular verb if the subject is a singular noun.

e.g.

John goes to office	She eats a mango
The poet composes poetry	They build a temple

This form of the verb is called the third person singular. You use it when the subject of the verb is not you or the person you are speaking to, but some other person - a third person - or a thing. The third person singular verbs that end in ‘s’

e.g.

Runs

Waits

Goes

Rings

e.g.

My uncle and guardian has come

Mom and Dad love us

Plural Verb

Use a plural verb if the subject is a plural noun. Do not add s, es or ies to plural verbs. Plural verbs are also used with the pronouns I, we, you and they.

e.g.

My brothers listen to music a lot	Some people drink coffee
The stars shine brightly on a clear night	Some children learn very fast
I listen to music a lot	We drink tea on every day
You eat well	They build a temple

The Verb gives us what people, animals or things are doing. It has six basic verb forms :

The Six Basic Verb Forms

e.g.

Base Form	walk	go
Present	walk / walks	go / goes
Past	walked	went
Infinitive	to walk	to go
Present Participle	walking	going
Past Participle	Walked	gone

Base Form

The base form is the source for the present, infinitive, and past participle of the verb.

Present :

This refers to something that is existing or happening now or happens routinely.

e.g.

I do my homework daily

He goes to temple

The main difference between the present and base forms is that the third-person singular present form adds -s or -es to the base form of the verb;

Past :

This form of a verb is used to indicate that something has already been completed.

e.g.

I did my homework

He went to temple

Infinitive :

The infinitive of a verb consists of to 1 its base form.

e.g.

to buy

to get

to go

Past Participle:

This is formed by regular verbs or irregular verbs. It is used with the helping verb such as has, have or had.

e.g.

I have completed my homework

She has come home

Present Participle:

This is formed by adding -ing to the end of present verbs. It is used with forms of the verb to be, such as am, is, are, was, or were. This expresses an ongoing action

e.g.

I am going to school

He is playing cricket

The verbs of a simple sentence

Verb is a core of every sentence. Without verb, a group of words is only a fragment of a sentence instead of a complete sentence. Even if a sentence contains only one word, that word must be a verb:

e.g.

Run!

Wait!

Go!

Ring!

Every verb must have a subject, expressed or understood. The subject of a verb is to assert something about its subject that is, to tell what the subject does (did, will do) or that the subject is (was, will be) something.

Subject + verb

e.g.

Subject	Verb
Horse	eats

This sentence consists of one clause. The clause has two parts, a Subject and a Verb. But this is not a complete sentence.

Subject + verb + object

e.g.

Subject	Verb	Object
Horse	eats	grass

The object of a clause is normally comes after the verb. This sentence is a complete sentence. The grass is clearly affected by the action of eating

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