Manser Useful Verbs and Tenses

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5906-3
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 136 Seiten

English verbs and tenses are difficult. There seem to be so many different tenses and structures. This book will help you not only understand how English verbs work but also use them correctly.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Manser, Martin

Leseproben

1 Basics 1.1 What is a verb? A verb is a doing or a being word: She likes chocolate. I am happy. Verbs play a central role in a sentence and often communicate the most important information: He ate an apple. They stopped at the light. Sometimes the verb may be a connecting word that links the subject with other parts of the sentence, for example the verbs be, seem and feel: I am happy. The storm seems to have ended. Something felt funny about his appearance. 1.2 Kinds of verb There are two main kinds of verb: main verbs and auxiliary verbs. Main verbs are verbs that show the meaning: She likes chocolate. He ate an apple. Auxiliary verbs are used with a main verb to change the meaning, tense etc of that main verb. Auxiliary verbs usually come in front of the main verb. If you want to change a main verb into a negative (with not) or a question, you use an auxiliary verb. Examples of auxiliary verb are be, do, have, can, may, must, shall and will: They are poor. She does not like bananas. Do you like cabbage? He had died. She can speak French well. I may arrive late. You must try harder. See 3 Auxiliary verbs. 1.3 Sentences A sentence is a meaningful and grammatically complete unit that consists of one or more words. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, exclamation mark or question mark. Sentences consist of a number of different parts: Subject The subject of a clause or sentence is the person or thing that the clause or sentence is about and is usually the person or thing that carries out the action of the verb: She left work early that afternoon. Life is full of surprises. The subject usually comes towards the beginning of a sentence or clause and comes before the verb, but sometimes it appears elsewhere: Where has my bag gone? Down went his opponent. Scarcely had one stranger left when another one arrived. ‘Come in,’ said the doctor. Object The object of a sentence usually follows the subject and the verb and refers to the person or thing affected by the verb. There are two kinds of object: A direct object is a person or thing directly affected by the verb: The man wrote the book. She likes chocolate. He washed the dishes. An indirect object is an extra object that sometimes comes with certain verbs, especially verbs referring to giving: He gave his wife a new jacket. Complement In some sentences what follows the verb is called a complement rather than an object because it gives further information about the subject or object of the verb: That seems a fair guess. Adverbial The adverbial refers to a part of the sentence that includes additional information about the verb. It often consists of a single-word adverb: Look carefully at the contract. 1.4 Transitive and intransitive verbs Most main verbs are either transitive or intransitive: Transitive means that the verb has an object. In He carried the box, the box is the object, so we can say that here the verb carried is transitive. Other examples of transitive verbs: He washed the dishes. She drove the car. I like basketball. In some senses the same verb may be transitive while in other senses it may be intransitive: She runs [‘manages’] a hotel. He ran [‘moves very quickly’] to catch the train. Some verbs (eg give, bring, lend, sell) have two objects. Such verbs are called ditransitive: They gave the boy [indirect object] a new football [direct object]. Intransitive means that the verb does not have an object. In the sentence The moon appeared, the verb appeared is not followed by an object, so we say that here the verb appeared is intransitive. Other examples of intransitive verbs: My tooth aches. The sun rises in the east. The lights sparkled. Some intransitive verbs are followed by an adverb or preposition: He coughed loudly [adverb]. The sun rises in [preposition] the east. The train arrived at [preposition] the station. 1.5 Regular and irregular verbs In English, there are two main kinds of verbs: regular and irregular. Regular verbs form their past simple tense (for example, you played yesterday) and their past participle (the form used with have: You have played many games already) by adding -ed to the base form (infinitive) of the verb. For example: I worked [past simple] three hours yesterday. We have lived [past participle] here since 2014. Grammar extra: the five main forms of English verbs 1 the base form (infinitive): work 2 the 3rd person singular of the present simple tense: works 3 the present participle: working 4 the past simple tense: worked 5 the past participle: worked Spelling rules with regular verbs To form the past tense and past participle: •   most verbs add -ed: help becomes helped, work becomes worked, ask becomes asked. •   where the base form (infinitive) of the verb ends in -e, add -d: hope becomes hoped; arrive becomes arrived. •   where the base form (infinitive) of the verb ends in a consonant and then -y, replace with -ied: study becomes studied; hurry becomes hurried. •   where the base form (infinitive) of the verb ends in a single vowel followed by a single consonant, then that consonant is doubled: drop becomes dropped. •   where the base form (infinitive) of the verb has more than one syllable, the consonant is doubled if the last syllable is stressed and the final consonant is preceded by a single vowel: prefer becomes preferred, occur becomes occurred. If the last syllable is not stressed, the final consonant is not doubled: develop becomes developed. An exception is words that have a final -l, which is doubled even if the syllable is unstressed: travel becomes travelled, cancel becomes cancelled. Irregular verbs form their past simple and past participle in ways that are different from regular verbs. With irregular verbs, you have to learn the past simple and past participle separately. See 15 Irregular verbs. Grammar extra: -ed and -t endings The spellings -ed and -t may each be used for the past tense and past participle of the verbs burn, dream, lean, leap, learn, smell, spell, spill, and...