Parts of Speech - Verbs
The verb is king in English. The shortest sentence contains a verb. You can make a one-word sentence with a verb, for example: "Stop!" You cannot make a one-word sentence with any other type of word.
Verbs are sometimes described as "action words". This is partly true. Many verbs give the idea of action, of "doing" something. For example, words like run, fight, do and work all convey action.
But some verbs do not give the idea of action; they give the idea of existence, of state, of "being". For example, verbs like be, exist, seem and belong all convey state.
A verb always has a subject. (In the sentence "John speaks English", John is the subject and speaks is the verb.) In simple terms, therefore, we can say that verbs are words that tell us what a subject does or is; they describe:
action (Ram plays football.)
state (Anthony seems kind.)
There is something very special about verbs in English. Most other words (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions etc) do not change in form (although nouns can have singular and plural forms). But almost all verbs change in form. For example, the verb to work has five forms:
to work, work, works, worked, working
Verb Classification
We divide verbs into two broad classifications:
1. Helping Verbs
Imagine that a stranger walks into your room and says:
I can.
People must.
The Earth will.
2. Main Verbs
Now imagine that the same stranger walks into your room and says:
I teach.
People eat.
The Earth rotates.
Helping Verbs
Helping verbs are also called "auxiliary verbs".
Helping verbs have no meaning on their own. They are necessary for the grammatical structure of a sentence, but they do not tell us very much alone. We usually use helping verbs with main verbs. They "help" the main verb (which has the real meaning). There are only about 15 helping verbs in English, and we divide them into two basic groups:
Primary helping verbs (3 verbs)
These are the verbs be, do, and have. Note that we can use these three verbs as helping verbs or as main verbs.
Modal helping verbs (10 verbs)
We use modal helping verbs to "modify" the meaning of the main verb in some way. A modal helping verb expresses necessity or possibility, and changes the main verb in that sense.
Main Verbs
Main verbs are also called "lexical verbs".
Main verbs have meaning on their own (unlike helping verbs). There are thousands of main verbs.
Main Verb Classification
Transitive and intransitive verbs
A transitive verb takes a direct object: Somebody killed the President. An intransitive verb does not have a direct object: He died. Many verbs, like speak, can be transitive or intransitive.
Linking verbs
A linking verb does not have much meaning in itself. It "links" the subject to what is said about the subject.
Mary is a teacher. (mary = teacher)
Tara is beautiful. (tara = beautiful)
Dynamic and stative verbs
Some verbs describe action. They are called "dynamic", and can be used with continuous tenses.
dynamic verbs (examples):
hit, explode,
stative verbs (examples):
be, like, love,
Regular and irregular verbs
This is more a question of vocabulary than of grammar. The only real difference between regular and irregular verbs is that they have different endings for their past tense and past participle forms.