VERBS:

A verb is a word that tells or asserts something about a person or thing. Verb comes from the Latin Verbum, a word. It is so called because it is the most important word in a sentence. (A doing word)

A verb may tell us:-

1. What a person or thing does, as,

• Calvin laughs
• The clock strikes.

2. What is done to a person or thing; as,

• Cal in is scolded.
• The window is broken.

3. What a person or thing is as.

• The cat is dead
• Glasses is brittle.
• I feel sorry

A verb often consists of more than one word, as

• The girls were singing.
• I have learnt my lesson.
• The match has been found.

TYPES OF VERBS.

Various types of verb are described below with their proper definition and examples.

(i) Action Verb: Action verb tells us about the action by the subject in the sentence such as do, go, sit, eat, help, laugh, weep etc.

For example,

• He eats healthy food.
• He plays sports daily
• He goes to school daily.

Action verb is categorized into two types of verbs named as transitive and intransitive. Sometimes verbs are used with direct objects (like persons or things receiving action of a particular subjects) however, sometimes don’t.

Read these sentences.

• The boy kicks the ball
• The boy cries bitterly.

In sentence (i) the action denoted by the verb ‘kicks’ passes over from the doer or the subject ‘boy’ to some object ‘ball’. The verb ‘kicks’ is therefore called a transitive verb.

In sentence (ii) the action denoted by the verb ‘cries’ stops with the doer or the subject ‘boy’ and does not pass over to an object. The verb ‘cries’ is therefore called an intransitive verbs.

(a) Transitive Verbs: Transitive verbs are those verbs which we use together with a direct (a thing or a person). Transitive verbs are like lift, our, make, feed, drive, etc.

For example,

• My friend owes me some money.
• She feeds her kids daily
• She drives car to the market.

(b) Intransitive Verb: Intransitive verbs are those verbs which do not have direct object to express their meaning. Generally, intransitive verbs are followed by adjectives, adverbs, verbs complements or prepositions. Intransitive verbs are like die, wait, respond, sit, look, arrive etc.

For example:

• My father died of Dengue
• My class teacher arrived in class very late.
• We waited for one exam for months.

2. Auxiliary Verb: Auxiliary verbs are those verbs which come before the main verb in the verb phrase such as be, shall, may, could etc.

For example,

• If everything is right, I well be going to school today.
• We shall meet tomorrow in the meeting to discuss some important matters.

3. Lexical Verb: Lexical verbs are main verbs other than the auxiliary verbs. Such as organize, come, rest handle etc.

For example,

• He will come home for lunch.
• Animals take rest in the shadow after grazing in the garden for long time.

4. Dynamic Verb: Dynamic verbs are verbs which we use to show an action, process, or sensation instead of a state. Such as throw, drive, grow, repair, hit etc.

For example,

• He drives car carefully on the zig –zag roads.
• My father is growing
• He threw a book in the class.

5. Stative Verbs: Stative verbs are verbs which we use to define a situation or state in the sentence. Such as seem, know, house etc.

For example,

• I would like to have all my friends in the class room.
• I seem very tired after long working day.

6. Finite Verb: Finite verbs are a verb which we use along with the given subject in a sentence. This verb justifies the state of subject. Such as love, hate, appear, enjoy, promise etc.

For example,

• She enjoys
• He appears
• He promised to behave well in future
• She hates bad habits.

7. Non – finite verb: Non – finite verbs are verbs having no differentiation in different tense and cannot be used as main verb alone in a sentence. Such as leave, expand, smile etc.

For example,

• I need to expand my working hours
• I leave the office daily after 10 p.m.
• I have no reason to smile.

8. Regular verbs: We can get past participle and past tense of a regular verb by adding “d” ‘ed’ or ‘t’ to the word. Regular verb is also called as weak verb. Such as accept, arrive etc.

He accepted my offer.

I arrived to the venue at the time.

9. Irregular Verb: Irregular verbs is also known as a strong verb as it does not follow rules for common verb forms. Such type of verbs do not have ‘ed’ ending. Such as go, get, take, see, say, come etc.

For example,

• I got my destination
• We went to Dar – es Salaam with teachers
• He came in the office at one right time.

SUBJECT AND PREDICATE.

Suppose someone said to you. “…………………………….have eaten their breakfast?”

Your would most likely ask, “who have eaten their breakfast? The subject of the sentence is missing.

Suppose someone said to you, “The boy and his mother……………………………..” and then stopped. You re likely to ask him what they are doing. The predicate of the sentence is missing.

Read this table.

Exercise:

Insert suitable subjects in the following sentences.

1. …………………opens the door
2. …………………plunged into the river
3. …………………went to play cricket
4. ………………….worked in the garden.

Exercise

Complete the following sentences by adding suitable predicates.

1. The angry dog____________________
2. A red roge_______________________
3. My teacher_______________________
4. Some boys_______________________

Exercise:

Divide the following sentences into two parts, subject and predicate.

Example.

My teacher went on a climbing expedition.

Column A (Subject Column B (Predicate)

My teacher Went on a climbing expedition.

1. My teacher went on a climbing expedition.
2. Roses and Lilies grow in our school garden.
3. Dogs are animals.
4. A thaw and people attended the marriage ceremony
5. An apple has a sweet taste.

VERBS: TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE.

Read these sentences.

(i) The boy kicks the ball

(ii) The boy cries bitterly

In sentence (i) the action denoted by the verb ‘kicks’ passes over from the doer or the subject ‘boy’ to some object ‘ball’. The verb ‘kicks’ is therefore called a transitive verb. In sentence (ii), the action denoted by the verb ‘cries’ stops with the doer or the subject ‘boy’ and does not pass over to an object. The verb ‘cries’ is therefore called an intransitive verb.

OBJECTS OF SENTENCES.

Suppose someone said to you, “The boys were making………………” and then stopped.

You would ask “What were they making?”

The subject was mentioned but a part of the predicate, and this part is called the object.

So, if you complete the above sentence thus: the boys were making a noise, ‘a noise is called the object of the sentence. The object of a sentence is found by putting ‘who’ or ‘what’ after the verb.

Example: I saw an elephant.

I saw what?

Answer: ‘An elephant’

Example: The policeman caught the thief.

The policeman caught who?

Answer: ‘the thief’

‘the thief’ is the object of the sentence.

Exercise.

1. Find the suitable objects for these sentences.
2. A party of students saw________________
3. Susan painted________________________
4. My uncle wrote ---------------------------------to my cousin.
5. When I rang the bell the servant opened_________________
6. Jack bought__________________________

Exercise:

Which of the underlined verbs are used as transitive and which are intransitive verbs?

1. Bernard wrote a poem on flowers.
2. The children sat under the tree
3. The ball passed through the window.
4. My father comes home in the evening.
5. The villagers built a community school in he village.
6. I saw a beautiful tie in the shop window.

VERBS…………….PRINCIPAL PARTS.

A verb has three principal parts in English.

(i) Past Tense: Past tense refers to actions that took place in the past. There are four different categories of past tense.

(a) Simple past /past participle

Talks of actions that have just happened. i.e not long time ago. It uses the past tense of the verb only.

e.g. walked, washed, kicked etc.

Example:

• I kicked the ball
• I washed my clothes

(b) Past continuous tense: These are actions that went on for sometimes in the past before another action took place. It uses a helping verb (past) + ing form. E.g.

• I was driving carelessly when I met the accident.
• Kabue was eating when the lights went off.

(c) Past perfect tense: Refers to actions that took place in the past and were completed before another action started.

We use: Had + ed form the verb.

Example:

• I had completed my work before they come in.
• The man had rested for a while before the pursuers got had of him.

(d) Past perfect continuous tense: Refers to actions that took place in the past and were either completed or still going on before another action started.

We use: had + been + ing form.

E.g. Mr. Egino had been teaching mathematics for 40 minutes before the break time bell was rung.

(ii) Present tense: Refers to actions that are taking place at the moment. These are four categories.

(a) Present simple tense: Refers to actions that are done always of habitually. We either use the base form of the verb (plural) or add ‘s’ to the base form (singular).

• E.G. They drew good pictures (plural)
• He draws good picture. (singular)

(b) Present continuous: Also called present participle tense. Refers to actions which are going – on now. We use a helping verb (present tense) + ing form.

Example, I am learning English.

Mr. Onyango is teaching tenses in our class.

(c) Present perfect: Refers to actions which have just been done and completed. We use has / have + ed form of verb.

E.G. I have taken my lunch. (action is already complete)

St. Stephen Boys’ School has performed well this year.

(d) Present perfect continuous: Refers to actions that have been going on.

We use has/have + been + ing form.

Example.

• Mrs. Egino has been practicing with the school choir since morning.
• Mr. Msuya has been teaching the form IV since morning.

(iii) Future Tense: Refers to actions that a time to come. These are three forms of the future tense.

(a) Future simple: Refers to actions that will take place in the near future – not long from now (present(.

We use shall/will + present tense form of the verb.

N.B. Shall is used with the first person pronouns (i/we) unlike will is used with any other word/pronoun.

E.g. I shall visit you tomorrow.

They will watch the movie after news.

(b) Future continuous: Refers to actions that will be going on for some time in future. We use shall/will + be + ing form.

Example:

Joseph will be watching football tomorrow afternoon.

Daldum will be celebrating his success next week when results will be out.

(c) Future perfect: Refers to actions that will take place in the future and be completed before another one starts. We use shall/will + have + ed form.

• Example:
  Rashid will have arrived by the time the news starts.
• Laurent will have completed his work before the lights go off.

N.B Some verbs have different past participle and past tense forms.

Remember, past participle words are used after helping verbs.

AGREEMENT OF SUBJECT WITH VERB

A singular subject takes a singular verb and a plural subject takes a plural verb.

First, find the subject in a sentence, Then find out whether it is plural or singular.

Example, The student goes to school every day. As the subject ‘student’ is singular, we must us a singular verb.

Example, The students go to school every day.

Here, we have a plural subject. ‘students’ and so a plural verb is used.

Now read these sentences.

(i) The price of apples______ too high (is, are)

What is too high? The price

As the number of the subject ‘price’ is singular we require a singular verb. So our sentences reads: The price of apples is too high.

(ii) The prices in that market___________reasonable. (is, are)

The subject of this sentence is ‘prices’ not ‘market’ and as this is plural we require a plural verb.

So our sentence reads: The prices in that market are reasonable.

Words denoting sums of money or quantities such as lengths, weights etc. are considered as units and take singular verbs.

Examples: Ten thousands shillings is in my pocket. (not are)

Ten months is a long time to prepare for an examination.

SUBJECTS WITH TWO NOUNS.

When the subject consists of two or more nouns joined by ‘and’ a plural verb is used.

Example, The horse and the dog are useful animals.

Example:

Choose the right verb to complete the following sentences.

1. The carpenter ______his work carefully. (do, does)
2. Measles_______an infectious disease (are, is)
3. The box of chocolates________bought. (was, were)
4. Fish and meat_______ nourishing food. (is, are)
5. Some students always___________ their exercise books at home. (leaves, leave)
6. A group of boys________ here every evening
7. The herd of cattle_________ grazing in the field. (are, is)

AGREEMENTS OF PRONOUNS WITH VERBS:

Exercise:

Fill in the blanks with the correct verb.

1. He ________ seem to be a promising boy. (do not, does not).
2. Suzan _______bought a new frock. (have, has)
3. Akram___________know the rules of football. (do not, does not)
4. He asked me if you____________a member of the hockey team. (were, was)
5. _______Jones often go to church? (do, does)
6. One of the boys_________hurt yesterday. (was, were)
7. Each of the soldiers_________given a medal. (were, was)
8. All members of the council_______ present. (was, were)