Grammar 101: Verbs
Grammar 101: Verbs with examples from Stargate SG-1, Harry Potter, and Heroes.
Co-written by katilara and supercheesegirl
Verbs: What are they?
In English, a verb is the focal point of the sentence. The verb contains all the action--it tells us what happened. The English language provides an endless variety of ways to modify the verb. All the various rules, tense, endings, and auxiliaries of English verbs might seem overwhelming at first, but remember that these elements allow us to describe events with precision and accuracy. Because English is such a verb-focused language, understanding the way verbs work will assuredly help you become a better writer.
Feeling tense?
The base form of a verb is the verb all by itself, without any modifications: walk, sing, swim. In most cases, the base form represents the simple present tense of the verb--it tells you what’s happening right now. In many languages, you must add different endings to the verb to indicate who is doing the action, but in English it’s pretty simple: use the root verb alone in the simple present tense, except in the third person singular, when you add an “s”.
First Person: I play with fire and don't get burned.
Third Person: Claire plays with fire and never gets burned.
First Person: I walk down the steep steps to Hagrid's hut.
Third Person: Harry walks down the steep steps to Hagrid's hut.
First Person: I meet with Jack in secret to discuss this mission.
Third Person: Daniel meets with Jack in secret to discuss their mission.
For additional information on writing in present tense, please see this feature by melayneseahawk.
A past tense verb tells you that the action happened sometime in the past. For most English verbs, you add “ed” to the end to form the past tense, no matter who is doing the action:
Present Tense: Ron trips over the ruffly hem of his dress robes.
Past Tense: Ron tripped over the ruffly hem of his dress robes.
Present Tense: Jack drags the body away from the gate, clearing the path for the others.
Past Tense: Jack dragged the body away from the gate, clearing the path for the others.
Present Tense: Hiro sneezes and accidentally stops time.
Past Tense: Hiro sneezed and accidentally stopped time.
Way to Be
English wouldn’t be English without exceptions to the rule! The first, and probably most important, exception to the rules above comes in the form of the verb “to be”. First off, being verbs don’t really describe an action. They tell you about what is: a state of being.
“Be” also doesn’t behave like other verbs do when it comes to tense. A verb like “walk” is the same in its base form (“walk”) as it is in the simple present tense (I walk, you walk, he walks). “Be” does something totally different--in modern standard English, it’s not correct to say “I be” or “he bes”. Instead, “to be” conjugates as follows:
I am a seer.
You are the brightest young witch of your age.
He/she/it is unable to die.
We are trapped on this deserted rock until we can get the Gate working again.
They are hopelessly doomed.
“Be” also has different forms in the past tense:
I was the last person that they expected to win the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
You were all alone in the field.
He/she/it was no longer allowed in the infirmary.
We were meant to meet up in Hogsmeade.
They were unsure of what to do with the Goa'uld.
See a pattern here? Anything plural (we, they, or the plural you) takes the same form of “be”: are or were.
Get the forms of “to be” ingrained in your head until it sounds natural. This is probably the most basic verb in English, and it will come back again once we start talking about auxiliaries later on.
Linking is fun
With the phrase “I am”, the speaker asserts her own basic existence. When she says, “I am a grammarian”, she’s making another statement about herself. The verb here (the verb “to be”) is functioning as a linking verb. We call it a “linking verb” because it links two things together: “I” and “grammarian”. The two words in this case are talking about the same person: me.
Other verbs can function as linking verbs, too. Here’s a list I memorized in grade school: appear, become, continue, feel, grow, look, remain, seem, smell, sound, taste. Each of those verbs, used properly, can complete the linking function as well. Ask yourself, are these two words being linked actually describing the same thing? Could I replace the verb in the middle with “is” (or a form of “to be”)? Here are some examples:
Hermione remains the smartest young witch in her class. (“Hermione” and “smartest young witch” are the same person.)
The band sounds great tonight! (The band sounds great because the band is great.)
Fluffy the three-headed dog smells terrible. (“terrible” is the state of “Fluffy's” odor.)
Sam Carter seems knowledgeable about their secret. (“knowledgeable” describes Sam, if she’s in on the confidential info.)
However, don’t automatically assume that every time you see a form of “to be”, that it’s acting as a linking verb. Take a look at the following two examples:
Daniel Jackson is a sexy archaeologist.
Daniel Jackson is translating an ancient text.
In the first sentence, “is” is in fact a linking verb. How can you tell? Because “Daniel Jackson” and “sexy archaeologist” mean the same thing! But “is” isn’t a linking verb in the second sentence. Daniel Jackson is not an ancient text or a translation of one. There’s nothing in the second half of the sentence that means the same thing as “Daniel Jackson”. In this case, “is” is working as an auxiliary verb. Let’s move on and look at how auxiliaries function in the sentence.
Adding Auxiliaries
What is an auxiliary, you may ask? An “auxiliary” is a little word that helps the verb out and serves to define the action more clearly. Phrases like “will walk”, “haven’t finished”, and “is snogging” all make use of auxiliaries.
So far we’ve looked at present and past, but how about the future tense? Adding the auxiliary word “will” to the base verb tells us that the action hasn’t happened yet, but will happen in the future.
With trembling hands, Harry will cast the spell.
Daniel will miss the constant presence of the others when he takes his leave.
Nikki Saunders will not make another appearance in his life.
Just Perfect!
The perfect tenses give us information about more complex time relationships. They indicate an action that was or will be completed at the time of another action. You recognize a perfect tense by looking for “have” or “had” along with the past participle of the verb (we’ll talk more about the past participle when we get to irregular verbs, so for now, just look for past tense):
Present perfect tense is used to express an action that is has been completed prior to the time period being dealt with. For example:
I have interviewed everyone I need to in reference to Jack’s court marshal.
Fred has gotten the closest to the giant squid out of anyone at Hogwarts.
Peter and Claire have talked about their relationship, but Peter still felt there was more to say.
Present perfect tense is best used when dealing with an unspecified time before the present, or to display duration from the past to the present.
Past perfect tense is used when you are talking about two actions in the past that occurred at different times in the past. This allows you to be specific about when the events occurred. For example:
Harry studied at Hogwarts, the same school his parents had attended some twenty years before.
Both events (Harry being at Hogwarts, and his parents being at Hogwarts) occurred in the past, but at different times in the past. We use the past perfect tense to show which event occurred earlier.
Future perfect tense is used when you are discussing an action which hasn’t happened yet, but which is planned to be completed before another event. For example:
The next time we see Mohinder, he will have figured out a way to crack the formula.
A handy way to remember the perfect tenses is to remember that ‘perfect’, in this instance, stands not for something that is without flaw, but rather for something that is completed in its entirety.
Progressives
A progressive form expresses an action that is ongoing--actions that are in progress. To create a progressive verb, we take our base verb, add “ing” to the end to show that the action is ongoing, and then add an auxiliary to the front: a form of the verb “to be”. All of the tenses we’ve talked about so far can be made progressive.
Present progressive:
I am breathing hard as I climb the cliff's face.
You are lacking in the qualities that would make a true hero.
Sylar is brooding quietly in his cell as the guard endlessly paces.
Past progressive:
I was hiding behind my indifference.
You were holding the Sword of Gryffindor.
Future progressive:
Nathan will be waking any moment now.
Present perfect progressive:
Hiro and Ando have been traveling for a long time.
Past perfect progressive:
Eden had been waiting to find something she could use against him.
Future perfect progressive:
Harry will have been sleeping for a little under two hours by the time the dung bomb explodes under his bed.
Look at the perfect progressives again. Those look like some big complicated verbs: I mean, “will have been sleeping” has a lot of words in it! But you can still break this down and identify exactly what’s going on. “Will” means the action will occur in the future. “Have” means it’s in present perfect tense, and that another action will be happening in relation to this one. And the “been” and the “-ing” mean that’s a progressive verb, that the sleeping will still be going on at the future time we’re talking about. Now we’re able to talk really specifically about exactly what Harry will be doing when that dung bomb goes off, and that’s what’s most important!
Feeling Irregular?
In general, irregular verbs are those verbs that do not follow the set rules for conjugation. The majority of irregular verbs in the English language are found to be irregular because their past participle can not be conjugated according to the usual patterns for English verbs. Use of a past participle indicates a time or action that was completed in the past. As was noted above, you can tell a regular verb is being used in the past tense by noting that a 'd' or 'ed' has been added to the end. Irregular verbs, however, as indicated by their name, are trickier. Here are examples of some of the most commonly used ones, along with their past tense and past participle forms.
Present: Harry is late to Potions again.
Past: Harry was late yesterday too.
Past Participle: Harry has been late to Potions four times this term.
Present: We have enough knuts to purchase the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes.
Past: We had enough knuts, before Ron spent them on butterbeer.
Past Participle: We have had to get rid of the Wheezes.
Present: When I do this spell perfectly, it will turn you into a newt.
Past: I did the spell perfectly!
Past Participle: In the end, Hermione had done the spell perfectly.
Present: Regulus doesn't believe everything Sirius says.
Past: Sirius once said the elf heads in the hall would eat him.
Past Participle: Regulus had said that that was ludicrous.
Present: When Vala makes eyes at Daniel, Jack wants to shoot her.
Past: After losing the bet, Daniel made lasagna for the whole team.
Past Participle: In doing so, Daniel had unwittingly made one of Jack's favorite foods.
Present: James goes on many missions that he doesn't want his son to know about.
Past: Harry went to Hogsmeade with his friends on Saturday.
Past Participle: Remus stood alone in the wreckage of Godric's Hollow; everyone else had gone.
Present: Sylar takes people’s powers by cutting their brains open.
Past: Parkman took a minute to think it over.
Past Participle: Peter looked up at his mother, surprised that it had taken him so long to realize.
Present: Peter always comes along, whether they need him or not.
Past: James couldn’t remember who came up with the idea to become animagi.
Past Participle: The time had come for James to prove to Sirius that he really did matter.
Present: Jack sees that diplomatic relations are probably necessary, but he’s not sure why Daniel thinks eating soup will help.
Past: Daniel saw the ancient manuscript and just had to read it right away.
Past Participle: Daniel had seen many things in his time going off world, but nothing could compare to this.
Present: When Hermione explains a concept, Harry always gets the idea.
Past: Harry got a slightly squished cake from Hagrid for his 11th birthday.
Past Participle: Harry had gotten through so many things, there was no way he was going to let a dragon take him out.
Some other common irregulars are sting/stung/stung, swim/swam/swum, write/wrote/written, think/thought/thought, /leave/left/left, stand/stood/stood, sit/sat/sat. There are tons of them!
Active/Passive
In active voice the subject of the sentence performs the action described in the verb. The verb tenses used in active voice are simple present, present progressive, simple past, past progressive, future, present perfect, present perfect progressive, past perfect, and future perfect. Most of the examples above are in the active voice, but here are a few more:
Harry tackled the big black dog and wrestled half heartedly with it across the library's floor.
Hiro closed his eyes and willed himself into the future.
Jack kicked the gun out of the enemy soldier's hands before the man had time to fire.
You can see that Harry tackled, Hiro closed, Jack kicked--the subject of the sentence is the one doing the action.
In passive voice the subject of the sentence is acted upon by the action described in the verb. The verb tenses used in passive voice are simple present, present progressive, simple past, past progressive, future, present perfect, and past perfect. Passive voice looks like this:
The Gate was worn down by wind and corrosive sand.
Lily Evans will be followed until the locations of the Order meetings is found out.
The paintings have been destroyed, their secrets burned with them.
You can read a more in-depth article on active and passive voice here at the community in a past feature.
As you can see, verbs are sometimes more than merely what you do. They can alter meanings and moods, and indicate when and for how long something happens. Like people, some are harder to classify than others, and some carry the brunt of the work, but they're all very, very important when it comes to speaking, story telling, and descriptive speech.
Co-written by katilara and supercheesegirl
Verbs: What are they?
In English, a verb is the focal point of the sentence. The verb contains all the action--it tells us what happened. The English language provides an endless variety of ways to modify the verb. All the various rules, tense, endings, and auxiliaries of English verbs might seem overwhelming at first, but remember that these elements allow us to describe events with precision and accuracy. Because English is such a verb-focused language, understanding the way verbs work will assuredly help you become a better writer.
Feeling tense?
The base form of a verb is the verb all by itself, without any modifications: walk, sing, swim. In most cases, the base form represents the simple present tense of the verb--it tells you what’s happening right now. In many languages, you must add different endings to the verb to indicate who is doing the action, but in English it’s pretty simple: use the root verb alone in the simple present tense, except in the third person singular, when you add an “s”.
First Person: I play with fire and don't get burned.
Third Person: Claire plays with fire and never gets burned.
First Person: I walk down the steep steps to Hagrid's hut.
Third Person: Harry walks down the steep steps to Hagrid's hut.
First Person: I meet with Jack in secret to discuss this mission.
Third Person: Daniel meets with Jack in secret to discuss their mission.
For additional information on writing in present tense, please see this feature by melayneseahawk.
A past tense verb tells you that the action happened sometime in the past. For most English verbs, you add “ed” to the end to form the past tense, no matter who is doing the action:
Present Tense: Ron trips over the ruffly hem of his dress robes.
Past Tense: Ron tripped over the ruffly hem of his dress robes.
Present Tense: Jack drags the body away from the gate, clearing the path for the others.
Past Tense: Jack dragged the body away from the gate, clearing the path for the others.
Present Tense: Hiro sneezes and accidentally stops time.
Past Tense: Hiro sneezed and accidentally stopped time.
Way to Be
English wouldn’t be English without exceptions to the rule! The first, and probably most important, exception to the rules above comes in the form of the verb “to be”. First off, being verbs don’t really describe an action. They tell you about what is: a state of being.
“Be” also doesn’t behave like other verbs do when it comes to tense. A verb like “walk” is the same in its base form (“walk”) as it is in the simple present tense (I walk, you walk, he walks). “Be” does something totally different--in modern standard English, it’s not correct to say “I be” or “he bes”. Instead, “to be” conjugates as follows:
I am a seer.
You are the brightest young witch of your age.
He/she/it is unable to die.
We are trapped on this deserted rock until we can get the Gate working again.
They are hopelessly doomed.
“Be” also has different forms in the past tense:
I was the last person that they expected to win the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
You were all alone in the field.
He/she/it was no longer allowed in the infirmary.
We were meant to meet up in Hogsmeade.
They were unsure of what to do with the Goa'uld.
See a pattern here? Anything plural (we, they, or the plural you) takes the same form of “be”: are or were.
Get the forms of “to be” ingrained in your head until it sounds natural. This is probably the most basic verb in English, and it will come back again once we start talking about auxiliaries later on.
Linking is fun
With the phrase “I am”, the speaker asserts her own basic existence. When she says, “I am a grammarian”, she’s making another statement about herself. The verb here (the verb “to be”) is functioning as a linking verb. We call it a “linking verb” because it links two things together: “I” and “grammarian”. The two words in this case are talking about the same person: me.
Other verbs can function as linking verbs, too. Here’s a list I memorized in grade school: appear, become, continue, feel, grow, look, remain, seem, smell, sound, taste. Each of those verbs, used properly, can complete the linking function as well. Ask yourself, are these two words being linked actually describing the same thing? Could I replace the verb in the middle with “is” (or a form of “to be”)? Here are some examples:
Hermione remains the smartest young witch in her class. (“Hermione” and “smartest young witch” are the same person.)
The band sounds great tonight! (The band sounds great because the band is great.)
Fluffy the three-headed dog smells terrible. (“terrible” is the state of “Fluffy's” odor.)
Sam Carter seems knowledgeable about their secret. (“knowledgeable” describes Sam, if she’s in on the confidential info.)
However, don’t automatically assume that every time you see a form of “to be”, that it’s acting as a linking verb. Take a look at the following two examples:
Daniel Jackson is a sexy archaeologist.
Daniel Jackson is translating an ancient text.
In the first sentence, “is” is in fact a linking verb. How can you tell? Because “Daniel Jackson” and “sexy archaeologist” mean the same thing! But “is” isn’t a linking verb in the second sentence. Daniel Jackson is not an ancient text or a translation of one. There’s nothing in the second half of the sentence that means the same thing as “Daniel Jackson”. In this case, “is” is working as an auxiliary verb. Let’s move on and look at how auxiliaries function in the sentence.
Adding Auxiliaries
What is an auxiliary, you may ask? An “auxiliary” is a little word that helps the verb out and serves to define the action more clearly. Phrases like “will walk”, “haven’t finished”, and “is snogging” all make use of auxiliaries.
So far we’ve looked at present and past, but how about the future tense? Adding the auxiliary word “will” to the base verb tells us that the action hasn’t happened yet, but will happen in the future.
With trembling hands, Harry will cast the spell.
Daniel will miss the constant presence of the others when he takes his leave.
Nikki Saunders will not make another appearance in his life.
Just Perfect!
The perfect tenses give us information about more complex time relationships. They indicate an action that was or will be completed at the time of another action. You recognize a perfect tense by looking for “have” or “had” along with the past participle of the verb (we’ll talk more about the past participle when we get to irregular verbs, so for now, just look for past tense):
Present perfect tense is used to express an action that is has been completed prior to the time period being dealt with. For example:
I have interviewed everyone I need to in reference to Jack’s court marshal.
Fred has gotten the closest to the giant squid out of anyone at Hogwarts.
Peter and Claire have talked about their relationship, but Peter still felt there was more to say.
Present perfect tense is best used when dealing with an unspecified time before the present, or to display duration from the past to the present.
Past perfect tense is used when you are talking about two actions in the past that occurred at different times in the past. This allows you to be specific about when the events occurred. For example:
Harry studied at Hogwarts, the same school his parents had attended some twenty years before.
Both events (Harry being at Hogwarts, and his parents being at Hogwarts) occurred in the past, but at different times in the past. We use the past perfect tense to show which event occurred earlier.
Future perfect tense is used when you are discussing an action which hasn’t happened yet, but which is planned to be completed before another event. For example:
The next time we see Mohinder, he will have figured out a way to crack the formula.
A handy way to remember the perfect tenses is to remember that ‘perfect’, in this instance, stands not for something that is without flaw, but rather for something that is completed in its entirety.
Progressives
A progressive form expresses an action that is ongoing--actions that are in progress. To create a progressive verb, we take our base verb, add “ing” to the end to show that the action is ongoing, and then add an auxiliary to the front: a form of the verb “to be”. All of the tenses we’ve talked about so far can be made progressive.
Present progressive:
I am breathing hard as I climb the cliff's face.
You are lacking in the qualities that would make a true hero.
Sylar is brooding quietly in his cell as the guard endlessly paces.
Past progressive:
I was hiding behind my indifference.
You were holding the Sword of Gryffindor.
Future progressive:
Nathan will be waking any moment now.
Present perfect progressive:
Hiro and Ando have been traveling for a long time.
Past perfect progressive:
Eden had been waiting to find something she could use against him.
Future perfect progressive:
Harry will have been sleeping for a little under two hours by the time the dung bomb explodes under his bed.
Look at the perfect progressives again. Those look like some big complicated verbs: I mean, “will have been sleeping” has a lot of words in it! But you can still break this down and identify exactly what’s going on. “Will” means the action will occur in the future. “Have” means it’s in present perfect tense, and that another action will be happening in relation to this one. And the “been” and the “-ing” mean that’s a progressive verb, that the sleeping will still be going on at the future time we’re talking about. Now we’re able to talk really specifically about exactly what Harry will be doing when that dung bomb goes off, and that’s what’s most important!
Feeling Irregular?
In general, irregular verbs are those verbs that do not follow the set rules for conjugation. The majority of irregular verbs in the English language are found to be irregular because their past participle can not be conjugated according to the usual patterns for English verbs. Use of a past participle indicates a time or action that was completed in the past. As was noted above, you can tell a regular verb is being used in the past tense by noting that a 'd' or 'ed' has been added to the end. Irregular verbs, however, as indicated by their name, are trickier. Here are examples of some of the most commonly used ones, along with their past tense and past participle forms.
Present: Harry is late to Potions again.
Past: Harry was late yesterday too.
Past Participle: Harry has been late to Potions four times this term.
Present: We have enough knuts to purchase the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes.
Past: We had enough knuts, before Ron spent them on butterbeer.
Past Participle: We have had to get rid of the Wheezes.
Present: When I do this spell perfectly, it will turn you into a newt.
Past: I did the spell perfectly!
Past Participle: In the end, Hermione had done the spell perfectly.
Present: Regulus doesn't believe everything Sirius says.
Past: Sirius once said the elf heads in the hall would eat him.
Past Participle: Regulus had said that that was ludicrous.
Present: When Vala makes eyes at Daniel, Jack wants to shoot her.
Past: After losing the bet, Daniel made lasagna for the whole team.
Past Participle: In doing so, Daniel had unwittingly made one of Jack's favorite foods.
Present: James goes on many missions that he doesn't want his son to know about.
Past: Harry went to Hogsmeade with his friends on Saturday.
Past Participle: Remus stood alone in the wreckage of Godric's Hollow; everyone else had gone.
Present: Sylar takes people’s powers by cutting their brains open.
Past: Parkman took a minute to think it over.
Past Participle: Peter looked up at his mother, surprised that it had taken him so long to realize.
Present: Peter always comes along, whether they need him or not.
Past: James couldn’t remember who came up with the idea to become animagi.
Past Participle: The time had come for James to prove to Sirius that he really did matter.
Present: Jack sees that diplomatic relations are probably necessary, but he’s not sure why Daniel thinks eating soup will help.
Past: Daniel saw the ancient manuscript and just had to read it right away.
Past Participle: Daniel had seen many things in his time going off world, but nothing could compare to this.
Present: When Hermione explains a concept, Harry always gets the idea.
Past: Harry got a slightly squished cake from Hagrid for his 11th birthday.
Past Participle: Harry had gotten through so many things, there was no way he was going to let a dragon take him out.
Some other common irregulars are sting/stung/stung, swim/swam/swum, write/wrote/written, think/thought/thought, /leave/left/left, stand/stood/stood, sit/sat/sat. There are tons of them!
Active/Passive
In active voice the subject of the sentence performs the action described in the verb. The verb tenses used in active voice are simple present, present progressive, simple past, past progressive, future, present perfect, present perfect progressive, past perfect, and future perfect. Most of the examples above are in the active voice, but here are a few more:
Harry tackled the big black dog and wrestled half heartedly with it across the library's floor.
Hiro closed his eyes and willed himself into the future.
Jack kicked the gun out of the enemy soldier's hands before the man had time to fire.
You can see that Harry tackled, Hiro closed, Jack kicked--the subject of the sentence is the one doing the action.
In passive voice the subject of the sentence is acted upon by the action described in the verb. The verb tenses used in passive voice are simple present, present progressive, simple past, past progressive, future, present perfect, and past perfect. Passive voice looks like this:
The Gate was worn down by wind and corrosive sand.
Lily Evans will be followed until the locations of the Order meetings is found out.
The paintings have been destroyed, their secrets burned with them.
You can read a more in-depth article on active and passive voice here at the community in a past feature.
As you can see, verbs are sometimes more than merely what you do. They can alter meanings and moods, and indicate when and for how long something happens. Like people, some are harder to classify than others, and some carry the brunt of the work, but they're all very, very important when it comes to speaking, story telling, and descriptive speech.