What are Verbs?
 The verb is king in English. The shortest sentence
contains a verb. You can make a one-word sentence with a verb, for example:
"Stop!" You cannot make a one-word sentence with any other type of
word.
Verbs are sometimes described as "action words". This is partly
true. Many verbs give the idea of action, of "doing" something. For example,
words like run, fight, do and work all convey action.
But some verbs do not give the idea of action; they give the idea
of existence, of state, of "being". For example, verbs like be, exist,
seem and belong all convey state.
A verb always has a subject. (In the sentence "John speaks
English", John is the subject and speaks is the verb.) In simple
terms, therefore, we can say that verbs are words that tell us what a subject
does or is; they describe:
- action (Ram plays football.)
- state (Anthony seems kind.)
There is something very special about verbs in English. Most other
words (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions etc) do not change in form (although
nouns can have singular and plural forms). But almost all verbs change in form.
For example, the verb to work has five forms:
- to work, work, works, worked, working
Of course, this is still very few forms compared to some languages
which may have thirty or more forms for a single verb.
In this lesson we look at the ways in which we classify verbs,
followed by a quiz to test your understanding:
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