532-002.htm

Overview

What are the other characteristics of the verb group?

The verb group provides us with various kinds of information such as whether something is positive or negative (polarity) when the action took place (tense), how likely or doubtful the speaker thinks something is (modality), who is taking part (person), and how the speaker or writer wants to organise the information (voice).

Person

The verb group is influenced by person, ie whether the Subject represents (or includes) the person or people speaking ('first person' - I, we), the person or people being addressed ('second person' - you), or someone else who may (or may not) be present ('third person' - he, she, it, they). The choice of Subject influences the form of either the auxiliary verb or the lexical verb depending on the tense. Here we see the verb in the present simple agreeing with the Subject in the third person singular:

	singular		plural
first person	I	play	we	play
second person	you	play	you	play
third person	he she it	plays plays plays	they	play

Tense

The verb group expresses tense. This is one of the special characteristics of the verb group. It not only tells us what happened, but also when it happened.

Tense (past, present or future) is indicated either by changing the form of the main lexical verb or by adding auxiliary verbs:

eat > ate [change in form of main lexical verb]

eat > have eaten [change in form of verb, or addition of auxiliary verbs]

For more information, click on the menu on the left: Time & tense: Overview.

Voice

The verb group gives us a choice between active and passive voice:

The children chased the ghost around the flat. [active voice]

The ghost was chased around the flat by the children. [passive voice]

The concept of voice is important because it affects the organisation of information in the clause. For example, note how the subject changes according to voice.

For more information, click on the menu on the left: Structure of the verb group: Voice: active and passive

Modality

The verb group can also express modal meanings, such as possibility, obligation and willingness:

Perhaps Boris will eat some apples next.
I must eat, I'm starving.
I could eat a little bit.

For more information, click on the menu on the left: Adjusting interactions: modality: Overview.

Polarity

The verb group can express polarity, ie whether something is positive or negative. This is typically through the presence or absence of a negative word such as not or never but can also be through a negative affix such as dis-:

Boris will never eat insects again.
The insects disagreed with Boris' tummy.

Multi-word verbs

The verb group typically represents just one action or event; however, two verbs can be used together, where the first verb adds information about the action or event. We refer to these as double verb constructions:

Dotty wrote a story about her favourite pop star. [single verb]

Dotty decided to write a story about her favourite pop star. [double verb construction]

The added information can be about the timing (started to write), about the reality (seemed to write), about the manner (decided to write), about the effort involved in, or success of the action (tried to write), or about the cause of the action (forced her to write).

For more information, click on the menu on the left: Structure of the verb group: Double verb constructions

Phrasal verbs

Phrasal verbs are multi-word verbs because they are made up of two or three words which form a short phrase:

"SleepStealer, my pretty friend. I need some sleep. You must go and look for some sleep." phrasal verb

For more information, click on the menu on the left: Structure of the verb group: Phrasal verbs

Note that the term Subject is written with a capital to remind us that it is a functional term.

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What is a verb group?
What are the other characteristics of the verb group?