Grammar and Communication Help

Verbs

Verbs are the "heart" of a sentence. They express the action or state of being of the subject, telling us what the subject is doing, thinking, or feeling.

She yelled out the window. (action)
I am happy to be here. (state of being)
We feel very lucky to be alive. (state of being)
I should ask Winston what he thinks. (action)

Verbs have five basic forms:

1. Infinitive: the base form of the verb plus the word to.
   to go   to be   to dream   to admire

To indicate tenses of regular verbs (when the action of the verb did occur, is occurring, or will occur), we use the base form of the verb and add the appropriate tense endings.

2. Present tense: the verb form that expresses what is happening now.
   I am sorry you are not coming with us.
   Jessica does yoga every morning.

The present tense of regular verbs is formed as follows:



3. Present participle: the verb form that describes what is happening now. It ends in -ing and is accompanied by a helping verb such as is.
   Jessica is doing a difficult yoga pose.
   The leaves are falling from the trees.

Note: Words that end in -ing don't always function as verbs. Sometimes they act as nouns and are called gerunds. They can also function as adjectives (called participial phrases).

Present participle (verb):             He is loading the boxes into the car.

Gerund (noun):                           This parking area is for loading only.

Participial phrase (adjective):     The loading dock is littered with paper.

(You will learn more about gerunds later in this section.)



4. Past tense: the verb form that expresses what happened in the past.
   It snowed yesterday in the mountains.
   I felt better after I stretched and did some deep breathing.
5. Past participle: the verb form that describes an action that happened in the past and is used with a helping verb, such as has, have, or had.
   It has not snowed all winter.
   I have waited as long as I can.

Regular, Irregular, and Helping Verbs

Regular Verbs

Most English verbs are "regular"—they follow a standard set of rules for forming the present participle, past tense, and past participle.

• The present participle is formed by adding -ing.
• The past and past participle are formed by adding -ed.
• If the verb ends with the letter e, just add d.
• If the verb ends with the letter y, for the past tense, change the y to an i and add -ed.

A handful of English verbs have the same present, past, and past participle form. Here is a partial list of those verbs and several examples:

Present:                 I read the newspaper every morning.

Past:                     I read the newspaper yesterday morning.

Past participle:      I have read the newspaper every morning since 1992.

Irregular Verbs

About 150 English verbs are irregular. They don't follow the standard rules for changing tense. We can divide these irregular verbs into three categories:

1. irregular verbs with the same past and past participle forms
2. irregular verbs with three distinct forms
3. irregular verbs with the same present and past participle forms

The following table lists a few examples of irregular verbs.

In English, as in many other languages, the essential verb to be is highly irregular:

Helping Verbs

Helping verbs (also called auxiliary verbs) are essential to clear communication. They help indicate exactly when an action took place or will take place.

They also suggest very specific meanings, such as the subject's ability or intention to do something. The following table lists the helping verbs, their forms, and their meanings.

Subjunctive Mood and Troublesome Verbs

Subjunctive Mood

The subjunctive mood is one of the verb forms we often forget to use in conversation, and therefore we often neglect to use it correctly in our writing. Like helping verbs, the subjunctive is used to express a specific meaning, indicating something that is wished for or that is contrary to fact. It is formed by using were instead of was as in the following examples:

If she were a little more experienced, she would get the promotion. (She is not a little more experienced.)

If I were rich, I would travel the world (Unfortunately, I am not rich.)

Troublesome Verbs

Three verb pairs are particularly troublesome, even for native speakers of English:

lie / lay
sit / set
rise / raise

The key to knowing which verb to use is remembering which verb takes an object. In each pair, one verb is transitive—an object "receives" the action—while the other is intransitive—the subject itself "receives" or performs the action. For example, lie is an action that the subject of the sentence "performs" on itself: I will lie down. The transitive verb lay, on the other hand, is an action that the subject of the sentence performs upon an object: I lay the baby down in the crib. In the following examples, the subjects are in bold and the objects are underlined.

lie: to rest or recline (intransitive—subject only)

lay: to put or place (transitive—needs an object)

I will lie down for a while.
Will you please lay the papers down on the table?

sit: to rest (intransitive—subject only)

set: to put or place (transitive—needs an object)

Why don't we sit down and talk this over?
He will set the record straight.

rise: to go up (intransitive—subject only)

raise: to move something up (transitive—needs an object)

The sun will rise at 5:48 a.m. tomorrow.
He raised the rent to $750 per month.

The basic forms of these verbs can also be a bit tricky. The following table shows how each verb is conjugated.

Now that you have reviewed verb conjugation and tense formation, it's time to talk about two key issues with verb usage: consistent tense and subject-verb agreement.

Verbe Tenses and Subject-Verb Agreement

Consistent Tense

One of the quickest ways to confuse people, especially if you are telling a story or describing an event, is to shift verb tenses. To help listeners be clear about when actions occur, make sure verbs are consistent in tense. If you begin telling the story in the present tense, for example, keep the story in the present tense; do not inadvertently mix tenses. Be clear about changing tense, and make sure that it makes sense in the context of the story (for example, a story that takes place in the present tense might use the past tense to talk about actions that happened before the story started). Otherwise, you will leave your audience wondering whether actions are taking place in the present or took place in the past.

Incorrect:	She left the house and forgets her keys again.
Correct:	She left the house and forgot her keys again.
Incorrect:	When we work together, we got better results.
Correct:	When we work together, we get better results. OR
	When we worked together, we got better results.

Agreement

In English grammar, agreement means that sentence elements are balanced. Verbs, for example, should agree with their subjects: If the subject is singular, the verb should be singular; if the subject is plural, the verb should be plural.

Incorrect:	They doesn't have a chance against Coolidge.
	(plural subject, singular verb)
Correct:	They don't have a chance against Coolidge.
	(plural subject, plural verb)

Of course, to make sure subjects and verbs agree, you need to be clear about who or what is the subject of the sentence. For example, what is the subject in the following sentence, and which is the correct verb?

Only one of the students [was/were] officially registered for the class.

In this sentence, the subject is one, not students. Though it seems like students are performing the action of being completed, students can't be the subject because it is part of a prepositional phrase (of the students), and subjects are never found in prepositional phrases. Thus, the verb must be singular (was, not were) to agree with one. In addition, it is only one of the students—not all—who was registered, so again, the verb must be singular.

Here are some other important guidelines for subject-verb agreement:

• If a compound, singular subject is connected by and, the verb must be plural.

Both Vanessa and Xui want to join the committee.

• If a compound, singular subject is connected by or or nor, the verb must be singular.

Neither Vanessa nor Xiu wants to join the committee.

• If one plural and one singular subject are connected by or or nor, the verb agrees with the closest subject.

Neither Vanessa nor the treasurers want to join the committee.

 

Neither the treasurers nor Vanessa wants to join the committee.

 

In an inverted sentence, the subject comes after the verb, so the first step is to clearly identify the subject. (Sentences that begin with there is and there are, for example, as well as questions, are inverted sentences.) Once you correctly identify the subject, then you can make sure your verb agrees. The correct subjects and verbs are underlined.

Incorrect:	There's plenty of reasons to go.
Correct:	There are plenty of reasons to go.
Incorrect:	What's the side effects of this medication?
Correct:	What are the side effects of this medication?

Gerunds and Infinitives

Gerunds and infinitives have given many students of English a grammar headache, but they are not so difficult to master. Gerunds, as we noted earlier, look like verbs because they end in -ing, but they actually function as nouns in sentences:

Tracy loves camping.

Here, the "action" Tracy performs is loves. The thing (noun) she enjoys is camping. In the following sentence, however, camping is the action Tracy performs, so it is functioning as a verb, not as a gerund:

Tracy is camping in the Pine Barrens next week.

Words ending in -ing can also function as adjectives:

Some of our camping gear needs to be replaced before our trip.

Here's another example of how the same word can have three different functions:

Verb:                   He is screaming loudly.

Gerund (noun):    That screaming is driving me crazy!

Adjective:           The screaming boy finally stopped.

What this means is that you can't count on word endings to determine a word's part of speech. Lots of words that look like verbs may not be. It's how they function in the sentence that counts.

Infinitives are the base (unconjugated) form of the verb preceded by to: to be, to delay, to manage. They are often part of a verb chain, but they are not the main verb (main action) of a sentence:

Priya likesto write poems.

In this example, likes is the main verb; what Priya likes (the action she likes to take) is to write poems.

When to Use Infinitives and Gerunds

In many situations, you may be uncertain whether to use an infinitive or a gerund. Which is correct: I like to swim or I like swimming? In this case, both are correct; like, hate, and other verbs that express preference can be followed by either a gerund or infinitive. But other verbs can only be followed by one or the other. Here are a few helpful guidelines:

• Always use a gerund after a preposition.

Keza thought that by taking the train, she would save money and time.

Noriel was afraid of offending her host, but she couldn't eat the dinner.

• Always use a gerund after the following verbs:



We should discuss buying a new computer.
I am going to quit smoking.
• In general, use an infinitive after these verbs:



Aswad promises to be back by noon.
Fatima failed to keep her promise.
• When a noun or pronoun immediately follows these verbs, use an infinitive:



I'd like you to reconsider my offer.
The committee needs you to organize this event.