This article is about the
part of speech. For the
physical activity program,
seeVERB (program). For
English usage of verbs,
seeEnglish verbs.
"Verbs" redirects here. For
the Christian gospel
rapper, seeVerbs (rapper)
.
Examples
I washed the car
yesterday.
The dog ate the
homework.
John studies English
and French.
A verb, from the Latin
verbum meaning word, is
aword (part of speech)
that in syntax conveys an
action (bring, read, walk,
run, learn), or a state of
being (be, exist, stand). In
the usual description of
English, the basic form,
with or without the
particle to, is the infinitive.
In many languages, verbs
are inflected (modified in
form) to encode tense,
aspect, mood and voice.
A verb may also agree
with theperson, gender,
and/or number of some
of its arguments, such as
itssubject, or object.
Agreement
Main article: Verb
conjugation
In languages where the
verb is inflected, it often
agrees with its primary
argument (the subject) in
person, number and/or
gender. With the
exception of the verb to
be, English shows
distinctive agreement only
in the third person
singular, present tense
form of verbs, which is
marked by adding "-s" (I
walk, he walks) or "-
es" (he fishes). The rest of
the persons are not
distinguished in the verb (I
walk, you walk, they
walk, etc.).
Latin and the Romance
languages inflect verbs for
tense/mood/aspect and
they agree in person and
number (but not in
gender, as for example in
Polish) with the subject.
Japanese, like many
languages with SOV word
order, inflects verbs for
tense/mood/aspect as
well as other categories
such as negation, but
shows absolutely no
agreement with the
subject - it is a strictly
dependent-marking
language. On the other
hand,Basque, Georgian,
and some other
languages, have
polypersonal agreement:
the verb agrees with the
subject, the direct object
and even the secondary
object if present, a greater
degree ofhead-marking
than is found in most
European languages.
Valency
Main article: Valency
(linguistics)
The number of
arguments that a verb
takes is called its valency
or valence. Verbs can be
classified according to
their valency:
Avalent (valency = 0):
the verb has neither a
subject nor an object.
Zero valency does not
occur in English; in
some languages such
asMandarin Chinese,
weather verbs like
snow(s) take no
subject or object.
Intransitive (valency
= 1, monovalent): the
verb only has a
subject. For example:
"he runs", "it falls".
Transitive (valency =
2, divalent): the verb
has a subject and a
direct object. For
example: "she eats
fish", "we hunt
nothing".
Ditransitive (valency =
3, trivalent): the verb
has a subject , a direct
object, and an indirect
object. For example:
"He gives her a
flower."
Weather verbs are often
impersonal (subjectless,
or avalent) in null-subject
languages like Spanish,
where the verb llueve
means "It rains". In
English, they require a
dummy pronoun, and
therefore formally have a
valency of 1.
Intransitive and transitive
verbs are the most
common, but the
impersonal and
objective verbs are
somewhat different from
the norm. In the objective
the verb takes an object
but no subject; the
nonreferent subject in
some uses may be
marked in the verb by an
incorporated dummy
pronoun similar to that
used with the English
weather verbs.
Impersonal verbs in null
subject languages take
neither subject nor object,
as is true of other verbs,
but again the verb may
show incorporated
dummy pronouns despite
the lack of subject and
object phrases.Tlingit
lacks a ditransitive, so the
indirect object is described
by a separate, extraposed
clause.[citation needed]
English verbs are often
flexible with regard to
valency. A transitive verb
can often drop its object
and become intransitive;
or an intransitive verb can
take an object and
become transitive. For
example, the verb move
has no grammatical
object in he moves
(though in this case, the
subject itself may be an
implied object, also
expressible explicitly as in
he moves himself); but in
he moves the car, the
subject and object are
distinct and the verb has a
different valency.
In many languages other
than English, such valency
changes are not possible;
the verb must instead be
inflected in order to
change the valency.
[citation needed]
Tense, aspect, and
modality
A single-word verb in
Spanish contains
information about time
(past, present, future),
person and number. The
process of grammatically
modifying a verb to
express this information is
called conjugation.
Main articles: Grammatical
tense, Aspect (linguistics),
Linguistic modality, and
Tense-aspect-mood
Depending on the
language, verbs may
express grammatical
tense, aspect, or modality.
Grammatical tense[1][2][3]
is the use of auxiliary
verbs or inflections to
convey whether the
action or state is before,
simultaneous with, or
after some reference
point. The reference point
could be thetime of
utterance, in which case
the verb expresses
absolute tense, or it could
be a past, present, or
future time of reference
previously established in
the sentence, in which
case the verb expresses
relative tense.
Aspect[2][4] expresses
how the action or state
occurs through time.
Important examples
include:
perfective aspect, in
which the action is
viewed in its
entirety though
completion (as in "I
saw the car")
imperfective
aspect, in which
the action is viewed
as ongoing; in
some languages a
verb could express
imperfective aspect
more narrowly as:
habitual aspect,
in which the
action occurs
repeatedly (as in
"I used to go
there every
day"), or
continuous
aspect
, in which the
action occurs
without pause;
continuous
aspect can be
further
subdivided into
stative
aspect, in
which the
situation is a
fixed,
unevolving
state (as in "I
know
French"), and
progressive
aspect
, in which the
situation
continuously
evolves (as in
"I am
running")
perfect, which
combines elements
of both aspect and
tense, and in which
both a prior event
and the state
resulting from it are
expressed (as in "I
have studied well")
Aspect can either be
lexical, in which case the
aspect is embedded in the
verb's meaning (as in "the
sun shines", where
"shines" is lexically stative);
or it can be grammatically
expressed, as in "I am
running".
Modality[5] expresses the
speaker's attitude toward
the action or state given
by the verb, especially
with regard to degree of
necessity, obligation, or
permission ("You must
go", "You should go",
"You may go"),
determination or
willingness ("I will do this
no matter what"), degree
of probability ("It must be
raining by now", "It may
be raining", "It might be
raining"), or ability ("I can
speak French"). All
languages can express
modality withadverbs,
but some also use verbal
forms as in the given
examples. If the verbal
expression of modality
involves the use of an
auxiliary verb, that
auxiliary is called a modal
verb. If the verbal
expression of modality
involves inflection, we
have the special case of
mood; moods include the
indicative (as in "I am
there"), the subjunctive
(as in "I wish I were
there"), and theimperative
("Be there!").
Voice
The voice[6] of a verb
expresses whether the
subject of the verb is
performing the action of
the verb or whether the
action is being performed
on the subject. The two
most common voices are
theactive voice (as in "I
saw the car") and the
passive voice (as in "The
car was seen by me" or
simply "The car was
seen").
Main article: Non-finite
verb
Most languages have a
number ofverbal nouns
that describe the action of
the verb.
In the Indo-European
languages, verbal
adjectives are generally
calledparticiples. English
has an active participle,
also called a present
participle; and apassive
participle, also called a
past participle. The active
participle of break is
breaking, and the passive
participle is broken. Other
languages haveattributive
verb forms with tense
and aspect. This is
especially common
amongverb-final
languages, where
attributive verb phrases
act asrelative clauses.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
VERBVERB
12:33 AM
Ravi mishra
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