Watch! Your sentences without a verb is just like life without a heart. Verbs establish a state of being. They give life to the sentence and express action. Generally, verbs are called action words.
This is how grammarians classify the verbs:
A. Into Subclasses
1. Regular They form their past and past perfect tenses with d or ed.
2. Irregular Those are all the other verbs and those that do not end in d or ed in the past and past perfect tenses.
3. Transitive Verbs that have objects, or words in the sentence that receive action from the verb, directly or indirectly.
4. Intransitive They have no objects. There is no receiver of action from the verb.
5. Linking verbs connect the subjects to a noun, pronoun, or adjective.
B. Into Six Verb Tenses
1. Present tense verbs indicate a condition (she is well), a routine (she studies everyday), and an opinion (learning means practice).
2. The past tense means that an action has occurred in the past. Past tense verbs mean that regular verbs will end in d or ed.
3. Future tense means action will happen in the future. The future tense verbs are preceded by either will or shall.
4. Present perfect tense means that the verb is preceded by the present tense helping verbs has or have. The tense indicates an action that began in the past, an action that may have been completed in the past, or it may continue to the present.
Ana has been a faithful servant.
They have gone to church.
5. Past perfect tense indicates that an action has occurred prior to a certain time in the past. The past perfect verb is preceded by the past tense helping verb had.
He had washed the dishes when I arrived.
He had emailed before I could stop him.
6. Future perfect tense means something will be completed by a certain time in the future. The verb will be completed by will or shall and have or has.
Practice on: The Verb Pray/ Write
C. As a general rule singular subjects take singular verbs: SS = SV
And plural subjects take plural verbs: PS =PV
Take note of the other rules of subject and verb agreement in making sentences. The rules are easy, but even professionals like us need to check /edit our work or let someone read it again for errors. Don’t worry though, there is no perfect grammar. But then, rules and exceptions have to be known.
