Verb Usage At Glance The Review Created by Ms. Harden

Verb A verb is a word that expresses action or a state of being (linking verb). Helping verbs assist the main verb. Verb phrases include one or more helping verbs and a main verb. There are four principle parts of verbs. They are as follows: the base, the present participle, past, and the past participle.

Action Verbs An action verbs expresses physical or mental action. Action verbs tell what the subject of a sentence did. Ex. Kelly introduced me to her friend. What did Kelly do? She introduced. So, the action verb is introduced.

Action Verbs Examples of Action Verbs: jump, hit, throw, skipped, thought, determined, remembered, remind, listened, engaged, developed, relied, replied, wondered, and shared. Kim shared her sandwich with Jim.

Linking Verb A linking verb is a state of being verb. The linking verbs links the subject of the sentence to a word in the predicate. In other words, the linking verb tells what the subject is or is like. The predicate word will either rename the subject or describe the subject. Ex. Allen is a policeman. Is is the linking verb. Therefore, Allen and policeman are the same person.

Linking Verbs Verbs of be Be, been, being, is, am, are, was, and were. Other common linking verbs: Seem, feel, become, appear, look, sound, smell, and taste. The milk tastes funny.

Helping Verbs Helping verbs assist the main verb. The helping verbs are is, am, are, was, were, be, been, being, can, do, did, does, may, might, must, have, has, had, could, would, should,will, and shall. She should have gone with me.

Verb Phrase A verb phrase consist of one or more helping verbs and a main verb. A verb phrase is considered as the actual verb in the sentence. A verb phrase is not always right next to each other. Sometimes the helping verb is separated from the main verb. Did you watch the movie When Harry Met Sally?

Verb Tense Tense of a verb indicates time. The three tenses of time: Present tense– the action happens now. Ex. I work hard. Past tense– the action happened already. Ex. I worked hard yesterday. Future tense– the action will happen soon. Ex. I will work tomorrow.

Regular Verbs A regular verb form its past and past participle by adding -d or –ed. Base: climb Past: climbed Past participle: (has, have, had) climbed Aaron climbed that tree yesterday. We have climbed it many times, too.

Irregular Verbs An irregular verb does not form its past and past participle by adding –d or –ed. Base: begin Past: began Past participle: (has, have, had) begun The party has begun.