Confusion about the Verb in a Sentence

Confusion about Verb in a Sentence
In my previous blog, I explained that the verb may be of more than one word. Then I explained as to how the students may find out the verb in Simple, Complex & Compound Sentences.

Today, I am going to explain something more about theverb.Sometimes students ask me about the helping or auxiliary verb.
They have confusion about the main verb (usually the non-finite verb) and the auxiliary or helping verb (always the finite form of the verb) in a sentence.

 

The main verb does an important function in a sentence. It shows the action done by the subject. It may come alone and in that case it expresses full meaning of its own.
In the following examples, the main verb needs no helping verb to explain its meaning.

 

1. He always completes his work on time.

 

2. He is never in a sad mood.

3. I have something to tell you.
(The underlined words are the main verbs.)

 

2. The main verb in a sentence may need a helping verb to complete its meaning.

 

1. It is raining very heavily now.
2. What are they doing at this time?
3. I have finished my assignment just now.

 

The underlined words ‘is, are & have’ are helping or auxiliary verbs in the above sentences and ‘raining, doing & finished’ are the main verbs.

 

The auxiliary verbs in the above sentences do not express any important meaning.

 

These tell us about the tense, number or the person of the subject. Only these verbs are affected by the change in the tense of the verb, the number and the person of the subject in the sentence.

 

On this basis, these helping verbs are called the
FINITE VERBS and the main verbs the NON-FINITE VERBS.

 

We may make the following categories of the verbs
used in sentences:
(I) Primary/main Verbs (when they need no helping verb with them):

 

Sometimes we use only one verb i. e. one-word verb.

 

It may be:
(a) Be-type verbs: (is/am/are; was/were)

 

(b) Have-type verbs showing possession and compulsion (has, have and had)

 

(c) Do-type verb (do/does and did)

 

(II)Action verbs like: catch, run, attack, come, go, etc (these are thousands in number)

 

(III) Modal Auxiliary Verbs: can, could, may, might, shall, will, should, would, ought (t), must, used (to), dare, need
We shall discuss them in the next blog.
…to be continued