Verb, as the central part of speech. Its different classifications.

Grammatically verbs are the most complex and central part of speech. The centrality of the
verb implies the essential role they play in the expression of predicativity of the sentence.. The cen-
trality of the verb is also conditioned by the complex system of its grammatical categories and vari -
ous classifications according to their functional, semantic and structural characteristics.

1. Functional classification of verbs

According to their functions, verbs are divided into four major categories or classes: lexical or
notional verbs, auxiliary ( primary) verbs, modal verbs and link verbs.
1. The grammatical categorical meaning of lexical or notional verbs is to denote action,
process or state dynamically, developing in time. The full verbs are only used as main verbs because of
their lexical meanings (e.g.: Every morning he goes to the office and comes back at eight). They be-
long to an open class of words since the English language is always adding new verbs to denote new
concepts. E.g.: to download, to upload, to e-mail, etc.
2. There are the following auxiliary verbs or primary verbs in Modern English: BE,
HAVE and DO. These verbs form a separate class because they can be used either as main verbs or as
auxiliary verbs. Primary verbs can act as main verbs when they realize their own lexical meaning.
a) BE denotes existence in general or existence in some location: Once there was a man
who had five sons; He is at home.
b) HAVE denotes possession or owning something: He has a big family – a wife and six chil-
dren. Nick has a new car.
c) DO denotes acting or performing something: They did everything to save the child.

When the primary verbs lose their lexical meaning they are used as auxiliaries:
a) The auxiliary BE is used to form the progressive/continuous aspect (He is having lunch;
Ben is writing a letter.) and the passive voice (Football is watched by millions of people).
b) The auxiliary HAVE is used to form the perfect and perfect progressive aspects:
I have just come home. It has been raining since morning.
c) The auxiliary DO is used to form negative statements and questions, and this is known
as “DO insertion”. For instance: Where do you live? He does not speak French at all.
3. Modal verbs (can, may, must, could, might, ought, have to, be to, be able to, shall, will,
should, would, need, etc.) are used only as auxiliary verbs to express ability (უნარი), possibility
(შესაძლებლობა), obligation (მოვალეობა), necessity (აუცილებლობა), volition (ნებელობა) or
prediction (წინასწარგანჭვრეტა, პროგნოზირება) of the action, process or state which is denoted
by the main verb. For instance, in the sentence – People thought he might have been joking. – the
modal might expresses possibility, while in the sentence – He would probably come. – the modal
would already expresses prediction of the action, denoted by the main verb.

4. Link Verbs are verbs which have lost their meaning and they do not express action.
Instead, they connect the subject of the verb to the additional information about subject.

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 Ann is a shopaholic. She will soon have a huge credit card bill to pay.

Kate always feels sleepy after eating.

This quiz seems difficult.

After drinking the old milk, Bob turned green.

Your idea sounds interesting.

It still remains a secret.

He grew angry and left the meeting.

2. Morphological classification of verbs

Verbs traditionally fall into two sets of morphological classes: 1) regular and irregular verbs,
and 2) finite and non-finite verbs.
1. The main principle of the morphological classification of verbs into regular and irregular is
the way how they form simple past and past participle forms. Regular verbs form past simple and
past participle by adding the inflectional suffix –ed (play - played - played), while irregular verbs
form them individually (give – gave - given).
2. The second morphological classification of verbs is based on the discrimination between
their finite and non-finite forms. They differ both in the number of their grammatical categories and
their syntactical functions.
There are three non-finite forms of the verb in English: the infinitive, the participle and the
gerund. The participle has two forms: present participle (participle I), which is formed with the help
of the inflectional suffix –ing (dancing, singing, etc.), and past participle (participle II) with the in-
flectional suffix –ed for regular verbs and other means of word-forming for irregular verbs ( danced,
brought, taken, etc.).

Finite forms are distinguished from the non-finites as follows:

1. Finite verbs can occur only INDEPENDENTLY as a simple predicate without copular
(link) verbs or modal auxiliaries (e.g. Nick speaks five languages.), while non-finite verb forms can
function as part of a complex verbal predicate ( Nick can speak five languages ). They can also per-
form other syntactic functions in a sentence. The most common functions of non-finite forms are
the following:
 Nick can speak five languages. (infinitive as part of a compound modal verbal predicate.)
 Dancing is my favorite pastime. (gerund as a subject)
 I like dancing. (gerund as a direct object)
 He sat on the sofa reading a book. (participle I as an adverbial modifier of attending cir-
cumstances)
 He saw a dancing girl. (participle I as an attribute)
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  There was a broken vase in the box. (participle II as an attribute)
2. Finite verbs have TENSE distinction (i.e. between present and past tenses: She works hard.
She worked hard.) while non-finite verb forms don’t have tense distinction, that is, they don’t have
the grammatical category of tense.
3. Finite verbs have grammatical categories of PERSON and NUMBER while non-finite verbs
don’t have any of them. There is a person and number concord between the subject of a clause and
its simple verbal predicate (e.g.: Nick swims well. he can swim well.)
4. Finite verbs have different forms to mark the grammatical category of MOOD, which re-
quires a choice between the indicative, imperative and subjunctive mood, while non-finite verb
forms are devoid of this grammatical category.
5. Both, finite and non-finite verbs have different grammatical forms for ASPECT distinction,
that is, distinction between the non-perfect and the perfect forms, on the one hand, and between
the non-progressive/non-continuous and progressive/continuous forms, on the other. You can com-
pare these forms:
Finite verb forms:
• He writes poems. (non-perfect, non-progressive).
• He has written poems. (perfect: auxiliary have + participle II)
• He is writing poems. (progressive: auxiliary be + participle I)
• He has been writing poems. (perfect-progressive)

Non-finite verb forms (modal auxiliary must + bare infinitive):

• He must write poems. (bare infinitive, simple, non-perfect, non-progressive)
• He must have written poems. (bare infinitive, perfect, non-progressive)
• He must be writing poems. (bare infinitive, progressive, non-perfect)
• He must have been writing poems. (bare infinitive, perfect, progressive)
6. Both, finite and non-finite verbs (except the gerund) have different grammatical forms for
VOICE DISTINCTION. The active form of the verb shows that the action denoted by it is performed
by the subject of the sentence, while the passive form indicates that the action is performed upon
the subject. For instance:
He writes poems (active)
Poems must be written by him (passive)
He has written poems (active)
Poems must have been written by him (passive), etc.
Due to the above-mentioned grammatical categories of tense, person, number, aspect, voice
and mood, finite verbs are capable to perform independently syntactic function of a simple predicate
in a sentence, whereas the number of these categories being restricted to aspect and voice, non-fi -
nite verb forms are devoid of this feature.

3. Structural classification of verbs

According to their structure, English verbs are divided into simple (i.e. root) verbs, derived
verbs, compound (composite) verbs and phrasal verbs.
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1. Simple or root verbs consist of a content morpheme that cannot be subdivided any further
into smaller parts. Such verbs are not numerous. For instance: ask, go, play, take, tell, de-
clare, etc.
2. Derived verbs fall into four subclasses according to their word-building peculiarities:
a) Derived verbs, which are formed by means of conversion, i.e., zero-suffixation. The
most common type of conversion is “noun – verb” conversion, such as: a cloud – to
cloud; a house – to house; a park – to park, an iron – to iron, a book – to book, etc.
b) Derived verbs, which are formed by means of vowel interchange:
food – to feed; blood – to bleed; drop – to drip, etc.
c) Derived verbs, which are formed by means of replacing the stress: 'im-
port – to im'port, 'transport – to trans'port; ′, etc.
d) Derived verbs, which are formed by means of affixation (a root morpheme + prefix or
suffix). They represent the most common type of derivation. There are many deriva-
tional prefixes used to form new verbs in English:
re-: rebuild, rename, etc.
dis-: disarm, dislike, etc.
over-: overeat, overtire, etc.
un-: unload, unfold, etc.
mis-: misinform, misunderstand, etc.
out-: outbid, outdo, etc.
However, there are only a few derivational suffixes (realize, stabilize, lengthen, moisten,
activate, regulate, beautify, notify, etc.).
3. Compound (composite) verbs consist of two or more roots: blackmail, broadcast, white-
wash, etc.
4. Phrasal verbs are represented by two specific types:
a) the first is a combination of the head verb have, give and take (occasionally some
others) and a noun. Such phrasal verbs have ordinary simple verbal equivalents: to
have a smoke = to smoke; to give a smile = to smile; to take a stroll = to stroll;
b) The second is a combination of a head-verb with a preposition which determines the
semantics of the phrase. For instance: look at, look after, look for, look through, look
up, look out, etc.