A verb group

Recognize parts that together form the predicate ▼ Explanation of term A verb group:  serves as the predicate of the clause and expresses an action or activity and one or more of the

Recognize parts that together form the predicate

▼ Explanation of term

A verb group:

 serves as the predicate of the clause and expresses an action or activity and one or more of

the following:

o aspect—how the activity relates to time (ongoing, continuous, repetitive, habitual) is

walking, has walked, had been walking

o mood—opinion, prediction, or inference about the action in the clause we may walk,

we should walk, we will walk (modals)

o voice—whether the focus or interest is the agent (active verb) or the patient (passive

verb) in regard to the action taken She walked her dog The dog was walked twice a

day

 A verb group takes form as a verb and one or more auxiliaries: a modal, have or be We may

have been walking

A verb phrase:

 In linguistic description, includes the verb group and its dependents:

o complements—elements required by the verb to make sense—a direct object, an

indirect object, apredicate complement such as a locational prepositional phrase or

a predicate adjective, an infinitive or gerund (non-finite clause) We have been walking

the dog

o adjuncts—elements that modify (are closely related to) the verb but are not

essential— adverbs (manner, frequency, degree and so on) We have been walking

routinely

The predicate:

 In traditional description, the predicate includes the subject, the verb or verb group and its

dependents—adverbs, objects and phrases related to the action of the verb

 In linguistic description, the predicate is a function that takes form as a verb or verb group

Only!

A Verb Group

Tense formed with Auxiliary Verb(s) Tense—Inflection vs Auxiliary INFLECTED TENSE (SUFFIXED)

In many languages, verb tenses are formed by inflection (adding a suffix or some other kind of marking) English has only two tenses

formed this way—present and past tense

PRESENT

We walk to work every morning (plain form)

He walks to work every morning (plain form + 3rd per sing.)

PAST

We walked to work every morning (past form)

These tenses express "factual" information without reference to the flow

of time or opinion about the activity.

AUXILIARY—TENSE, ASPECT, MOOD

The other "tenses" are formed with auxiliary verbs and a secondary verb form (bare, -ing or -ed) The auxiliaries combine to express tense, mood and aspect See Tense, Mood & Aspect below

PROGRESSIVE (ASPECT)

We are walking to work

We have been walking to work PERFECT (ASPECT)

We have finished our walk

We will have finished walking

FUTURE / PREDICTION (MOOD)

We will finish in an hour

She may have finished her walk already

CONDITIONAL (MOOD)

If I could, I would walk you

We would n't be walking now, if we had put gas in the car

earlier

Auxiliary Combinations with Lexical Verb Auxiliaries combine with lexical verbs to express tense

AUXILIARY–MODAL AUXILIARY–PERFECT AUXILIARY–BE AUXILIARY–BE LEXICAL VERB FORM

MODAL — will, would,

may, might,can, could,

shall, should, ought

PERFECT — has, have, had

PROGRESSIVE —

is / are, was / were, been

PASSIVE — is / are, was / were, been

A verb takes plain form, past,

and participle form, 3rd person plural suffix

walk(s) (present, imperative, subjunctive)

walked (past form)

was walked (past participle)

Also see Be Copula and "Be"–Lexical or Auxiliary?

lexical (Adj) — having meaning (one that could be found in a dictionary)

(Huddleson 3 §2.3) (Swan 85)

(Huddleston "catenative auxiliaries" 14 §4.2.2) The auxiliary is the main verb which takes a nonfinite

complement He [V is [ nonfinite working]]

Verb Group

Auxiliary and Next Verb Form Auxiliary Determines Next Verb Form AUXILIARY + NEXT FORM TYPE PRES / (FUTURE) PAST PERFECT

MODAL ⇒ PLAIN FORM

— will, would, may, might,can, could,

shall, should, ought

Charlie will ⇒ raise his hand

Charlie would ⇒ rai

se his hand

Charlie will ⇒ have raised his hand by then (future perfect)

Charlie would ⇒ have

raised his hand (conditional perfect)

PERFECT ⇒ PAST PARTICIPLE

— has, have, had

Charlie has ⇒ raised his hand

Charlie had ⇒ raise

d his hand

Charlie had ⇒ raised his hand

PROGRESSIVE ⇒

GERUND-PARTICIPLE

— is / are, was / were, been

Charlie is ⇒ raising his hand

Charlie was ⇒ raisi

ng his hand

Charlie had been ⇒raising his hand

PASSIVE ⇒ PAST PARTICIPLE

— is / are, was / were, been

His hand Is ⇒raised His

hand was ⇒raised

Charlie's hand has been⇒raised Charlie's

hand had been⇒raised

Tense, Mood & Aspect

Auxiliaries in verb groups express tense, aspect, mood and voice

MARKED BY INFLECTION (SUFFIXES) OR VERB COMBINATIONS

TENSE

temporal location

Locates the action or event in a period of time

It rains (fact, general truth)

It rained (fact, past, done)

ASPECT

temporal flow

Takes an internal experience view of how

an activity relates to time —ongoing, continuous, repetitive, habitual It is not limited to or relative to a single point in time

It was raining (progressive aspect) ongoing experience

It has rained (perfect aspect) has continuing relevance

It used to rain (habitual aspect) was repetitive

MOOD

non-factual assertions

Adds opinion, prediction, or inference to the clause

It may stop raining in a few minutes (prediction, opinion)

MARKED BY STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND VERB COMBINATIONS

VOICE

focus on agent or patient

Allows placing either the "patient"

(w/ passive verb) in the subject position

or the "agent" (w/activeverb) in the

subject position

Her prediction was proved wrong by the rain (passive)

The rain proved her prediction wrong (active)

the leaves.)

patient ("theme")—the person or thing that is affected by the action denoted by the predicate The thing acted upon (He sang a song for them )

aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates

to the flow of time

mood is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates

to the flow of time