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A Verb Group
Recognize parts that together form the predicate
A verb group:
- serves as the predicate of the clause and expresses an action or activity and one or more of the following:
- aspect—how the activity relates to time (ongoing, continuous, repetitive, habitual) is walking, has walked, had been walking.
- mood—opinion, prediction, or inference about the action in the clause we may walk, we should walk, we will walk. (modals)
- voice—whether the focus or interest is the agent (active verb) or the patient (passive verb) in regard to the action taken. She walked her dog. The dog was walked twice a day.
- A verb group takes form as a verb and one or more auxiliaries: a modal, have or be. We may have been walking.
A verb phrase:
- In linguistic description, includes the verb group and its dependents:
- complements—elements required by the verb to make sense: a direct object (He walked the dog.); an indirect object (He handed me the dog.); a predicate complement such as a locational prepositional phrase (He fell down.); a predicate adjective (He pushed the door open.); an adverb (He treats the dog fairly.); an infinitive (He wants to talk.), a gerund (He enjoys walking.); a clause (He insisted that the dog sit.) See complements.
- adjuncts—elements that modify (are closely related to) the verb but are not essential— adverbs (manner, frequency, degree and so on). (We have been walking routinely.) See adjuncts.
The predicate:
- In traditional description, the predicate includes the subject, the verb or verb group and its dependents—adverbs, objects and phrases related to the action of the verb.
- In linguistic description, the predicate is a function that takes form as a verb or verb group. Only!
A Verb Group
Express timing with tense or auxiliary verb groups
Inflected Tense vs. Auxiliary Verb Tense
| INFLECTED TENSE (SUFFIXED) |
|---|
In many languages, verb tenses are formed by inflection (adding a suffix or some other kind of marking). English has only two tenses formed this way—present and past tense. |
| PRESENT |
We walk to work every morning. (plain form) He walks to work every morning. (plain form + 3rd per sing.) |
| PAST |
We walked to work every morning. (past form) |
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These tenses express "factual" information without reference to the flow of time or opinion about the activity. |
| AUXILIARY—TENSE, ASPECT, MOOD |
|---|
The other "tenses" are formed with auxiliary verbs and a secondary verb form (bare, -ing or -ed) The auxiliaries combine to express tense, mood and aspect. See Tense, Mood & Aspect below. |
| PROGRESSIVE (ASPECT) |
We are walking to work. We have been walking to work |
| PERFECT (ASPECT) |
We have finished our walk. We will have finished walking. |
| FUTURE / PREDICTION (MOOD) |
We will finish in an hour. She may have finished her walk already. |
| CONDITIONAL (MOOD) |
If I could, I would walk you. We wouldn't be walking now, if we had put gas in the car earlier. |
Verb Group
Auxiliary Combinations with Lexical Verb
Auxiliaries combine with lexical verbs to express tense.
| AUXILIARY–MODAL | AUXILIARY–PERFECT | AUXILIARY–BE | AUXILIARY–BE | LEXICAL VERB FORM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
MODAL — will, would, may, might,can, could, shall, should, ought |
PERFECT — has, have, had |
PROGRESSIVE— is / are, was / were, been |
PASSIVE — is / are, was / were, been |
A verb takes plain form, past, and participle form, 3rd person plural suffix. |
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walk(s) (present, imperative, subjunctive) |
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walked (past form) |
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was |
walked (past. participle) |
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was |
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walking (pres. participle) |
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was |
being |
walked |
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has |
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walked |
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had |
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walked |
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has |
been |
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walking |
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had |
been |
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walking |
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has |
been |
being |
walked |
will |
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walk (plain form) |
will |
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be |
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walking (pres. participle) |
will |
have |
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walked |
will |
have |
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been |
walked |
Also see Be Copula and "Be"–Lexical or Auxiliary?
lexical (Adj) — having meaning (one that could be found in a dictionary)
(Huddleson 3 §2.3) (Swan 85)
(Huddleston "catenative auxiliaries" 14 §4.2.2) The auxiliary is the main verb which takes a nonfinite complement. He [V. is [nonfinite working]].
Verb Group
Auxiliary and Next Verb Form
Auxiliary Determines Next Verb Form
| AUXILIARY + NEXT FORM TYPE | PRES / (FUTURE) | PAST | PERFECT |
|---|---|---|---|
MODAL ⇒ PLAIN FORM |
Charlie will ⇒ raise his hand. |
Charlie would ⇒ raise his hand. |
Charlie will ⇒ have raised his hand by then. (future perfect) Charlie would ⇒ have raised his hand. (conditional perfect) |
PERFECT ⇒ PAST PARTICIPLE |
Charlie has ⇒ raised his hand. |
Charlie had ⇒ raised his hand. |
Charlie had ⇒ raised his hand. |
PROGRESSIVE ⇒ GERUND-PARTICIPLE |
Charlie is ⇒ raising his hand. |
Charlie was ⇒ raising his hand. |
Charlie had been ⇒ raising his hand. |
PASSIVE ⇒ PAST PARTICIPLE |
His hand Is ⇒raised. |
His hand was ⇒raised. |
Charlie's hand has been ⇒raised. Charlie's hand had been ⇒raised. |
Related page Primary and Secondary Verbs.
(Huddleston 3 §3.3 [44])
Tense, Mood & Aspect
How do tense, aspect and mood affect the meaning of a verb?
Auxiliaries in verb groups express tense, aspect, mood and voice
| SYSTEM | APPROXIMATE FUNCTION | EXAMPLE |
|---|---|---|
— |
Not marked. |
It rains. (fact, always, whenever) |
| MARKED BY INFLECTION (SUFFIXES) OR VERB COMBINATIONS | ||
TENSE temporal location
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Locates the action or event in a period of time. |
It rains. (fact, general truth) It rained. (fact, past, done) |
ASPECT temporal flow |
Takes an internal experience view of how an activity relates to time —ongoing, continuous, repetitive, habitual. It is not limited to or relative to a single point in time. |
It was raining. (progressive aspect) ongoing experience It has rained. (perfect aspect) has continuing relevance It used to rain (habitual aspect) was repetitive |
MOOD non-factual assertions
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Adds opinion, prediction, or inference to the clause. |
It may stop raining in a few minutes. (prediction, opinion) |
| MARKED BY STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND VERB COMBINATIONS | ||
VOICE focus on agent or patient |
Allows placing either the "patient" (w/ passive verb) in the subject position or the "agent" (w/active verb) in the subject position. |
Her prediction was proved wrong by the rain. (passive) The rain proved her prediction wrong. (active) |
agent—the person or thing that takes action to do something. (He sang a song for them.. The wind blew the leaves.)
patient ("theme")—the person or thing that is affected by the action denoted by the predicate. The thing acted upon. (He sang a song for them.) See Transitive Verbs–terminology.
(Aarts 9, 10) (Biber 4) (Huddleston 3 §3) (Payne 12)
aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates to the flow of time.
mood is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates to the flow of time.
(Biber 4) (Huddleston 3 §3) .
Verb Groups (Advanced)
Related Content
See Grammar Notes on relevant pages:
Verbs w/ Auxiliary Forms
Voice
Works Cited
- Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford UP, 2011.
- Azar, Betty Schrampfer, and Stacy A. Hagen. Understanding and Using English Grammar. 4th ed., Pearson Education, 2009.
- Biber, Douglas, and Stig Johansson, et al. Longman Grammar Of Spoken And Written English. Pearson Education, 1999.
- Huddleston, Rodney D., and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002.
- Payne, Thomas Edward. Understanding English Grammar: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge UP, 2011.
- Swan, Michael. Practical English Usage. 3rd ed., Oxford UP, 2005.