INGLES #1

Correct Use of Verbs

A verb must agree with its subject in number, person and gender.

Our followers are but a handful. (Here the plural verb are agrees with the plural subject followers.)

One of the boys was selected. (Here the singular verb was agrees with the singular subject one.)

He is an old friend of mine.

The subject must have a verb.

The subject of the sentence should be followed by a verb. Note that a sentence must have at least one verb.

The following sentence is incorrect because it does not have a verb.

He who has won the prize, let him speak.

This sentence should be re-written as follows:

Let him who has won the prize speak.

OR

He who has won the prize should speak.

Infinitives

An infinitive should be in the present tense unless it represents an action prior to that mentioned by the principal verb.

I should have liked to win. (NOT I should have liked to have won.)

But it is correct to say:

He seems to have enjoyed his stay at the hill station. (Here the stay at the hill station took place earlier than the action mentioned by the main verb.)

The participle should not be left without proper agreement.

Consider the sentence given below:

Having bitten the postman, the farmer killed the dog.

The above sentence means that it was the farmer who bit the postman.

This sentence should be re-written as follows:

Having bitten the postman, the dog was killed by the farmer. OR The dog having bitten the postman, the farmer killed it.

Now consider the example given below:

Standing at the gate, a scorpion stung him. (This sentence means that it was the scorpion that was standing at the gate.) It should be re-written as follows:

Standing at the gate, he was stung by a scorpion. OR While he was standing at the gate, a scorpion stung him.

Constructions like these are, however, permitted in the following cases:

Considering his age and experience, he should have done better.

Roughly speaking, it would take around six months to learn English.

The verbs see, hear, smell and make are followed by noun/pronoun + plain infinitive.

They made the child drink the whole milk. (NOT They made the child to drink …)

I heard her sing a lovely song. (NOT I heard her to sing …)

The verbs enjoy, avoid, miss, postpone and suggest should be followed by gerunds, and not to-infinitives.

She enjoys singing. (NOT She enjoys to sing.)

Mother suggested consulting a doctor. (NOT Mother suggested to consult…)

Kinds of Verbs

Usually, a verb is that part of a speech used to indicate the state of being. It is also used to describe an occurrence or an action. In most cases, a verb is well understood by the work it does rather than talking about it or trying to describe it. For instance, the word “rain” can be taken as a verb or a noun; and therefore, what a verb does will clearly bring out the difference. Simply, a verb will move sentences along in many different ways hence, different kinds of verbs.     

	Definition	Sample Verbs	Sentence Examples
Transitive Verbs	Verbs that are used together with a direct object. The object can be a thing or a person.	1. Owe 2. Feed 3. Make 4. Drive 5. Lift	1. Richard owes Jimmy some money. 2. He feeds his children while their mother is away. 3. She makes jewelry to sell at the market.
Intransitive Verbs	Verbs that don’t have a direct object for their meaning to be communicated. In most cases, they are followed by an adverb, adjective, verb complement or a preposition.	1. Die 2. Arrive 3. Respond 4. Wait 5. Sit 6. Look	1. His sister died of Malaria. 2. We arrived at school very late. 3. Mary responded to all questions in the exam.

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Auxiliary Verbs & Lexical Verb

Among the many kinds of verbs in English, auxiliary verbs and lexical verbs are very useful.

	Definition	Sample Verbs	Sentence Examples
Auxiliary Verbs	Verbs  that come before main verbs in a verb phrase	1. Be 2. Shall 3. May 4. Could	1. If all goes well, I will be going home today. 2. We shall meet tomorrow in the afternoon and discuss the matter we left pending. 3. We may go shopping anytime from now because the rains have stopped.
Lexical Verb	All other verbs other than auxiliary verbs. It is a main verb.	1. Come 2. Rest 3. Organize 4. Handle	1. He will be coming home for dinner. 2. He rested in the shadow after a tedious job in the garden. 3. Thomas will be organizing the group before he travels.

Dynamic Verbs & Stative Verbs

Dynamic verbs and stative verbs are among the most common kinds of verbs in English which one should know about.

	Definition	Sample Verbs	Sentence Examples
Dynamic Verbs	A verb basically used to show a process, an action or a sensation rather than a state.	1. Drive 2. Grow 3. Throw 4.  Hit 5.  Repair	1. He drives carefully down the hill. 2. Mathew is growing old. 3. She threw a stone at me angrily.
Stative Verb	A verb basically used to define a situation or state.	1. Have 2. Seem 3. Know	1. What do you have to say about his behavior nowadays? 2. You seem too tired to continue working today. 3. Do you know anything about verbs?

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Finite Verbs & Nonfinite Verbs

There are different kinds of verbs in English, finite verbs and nonfinite verbs are two of them.

	Definition	Sample Verbs	Sentence Examples
Finite Verbs	A verb that agrees with a given subject in a sentence. It is usually marked for tense.	1. Appear 2. Promise 3. Enjoy 4. Love 5. Hate	1. He appears sick. 2. Jane promised to change her behavior. 3. Gladys said that she enjoyed learning more about verbs.
Nonfinite Verb	A verb that has no distinction in different tense. It cannot be used unaccompanied as the main verb in a given question or sentence.	1. Expand 2. Leave 3. Smile	1. You can expand your boundary. 2. We may leave after 10.00pm. 3. She had a reason to smile.

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Regular Verbs & Irregular Verbs

	Definition	Sample Verbs	Sentence Examples
Regular Verbs	A verb whose past participle and past tense is attained by adding –d or –ed or –t for some. It is sometimes called a weak verb.	1. Accept 2. Arrive 3. Fence 4. Deliver	1. I accepted the offer. 2. He has just arrived. 3. He fenced the area.
Irregular Verb	Also called a strong verb. It does not usually follow the rules for common verb forms.  They usually do not have the predictable –ed ending.	1. Get 2. Go 3. Say 4. See 5. Come 6. Take 7. Sleep	1. He got his business running at the right time. 2. We went (go) home early. 3. They came by bus on a Saturday morning.

Conjugation of English Regular Verbs

Regular verbs in English are conjugated using the infinitive for all forms, except that the past and past participle end in "ed", the present participle ends in "ing", and the third person singular ends in "s".  Although these appear to be very simple rules, the morphology of regular English verbs is affected by phonetic and orthographic constraints that make it necessary to follow several slightly different patterns for adding the endings to the verb stem.   Here are some of the most common patterns.

Verbs ending in a long vowel or diphthong followed by a consonant, such as paint, claim, devour, or play.

Or ending in a consonant cluster such as delight, or clamp.

Add "ed" to the infinitive form to create the past and past participle, add "ing" to create the present participle, and add "s" to create the 3rd person present.

Conjugation for "play":

Infinitive	play
Past	played
Present Participle	playing
Past Participle	played
Present:
I	play
You	play
He, She, It	plays
We	play
You	play
They	play

Verbs ending in a short vowel followed by a consonant such as chat, chop, or compel.
Double the final consonant and add "ed" to the infinitive form to create the past and past participle, Double the final consonant and add "ing" to create the present participle, and add "s" to create the 3rd person present.

Conjugation for "chop":

Infinitive	chop
Past	chopped
Present Participle	chopping
Past Participle	chopped
Present:
I	chop
You	chop
He, She, It	chops
We	chop
You	chop
They	chop

Verbs ending in a consonant followed by "e" such as dance, save, devote, or evolve.
Add "d" to the infinitive form to create the past and past participle, replace the final "e" with "ing" to create the present participle, and add "s" to create the 3rd person present.

Conjugation for "devote":

Infinitive	devote
Past	devoted
Present Participle	devoting
Past Participle	devoted
Present:
I	devote
You	devote
He, She, It	devotes
We	devote
You	devote
They	devote

Verbs ending in sibilants such as kiss, bless, box, polish, or preach.

Add "ed" to the infinitive form to create the past and past participle, add "ing" to create the present participle, and add "es" to create the 3rd person present.

Conjugation for "polish":

Infinitive	polish
Past	polished
Present Participle	polishing
Past Participle	polished
Present:
I	polish
You	polish
He, She, It	polishes
We	polish
You	polish
They	polish

Verbs ending in a consonant followed by "y" such as comply, copy, or magnify.
Replace the final "y" of the infinitive with "ied" to create the past and past participle, add "ing" to create the present participle, and replace the final "y" with "ies" to create the 3rd person present.

Conjugation for "copy":

Infinitive	copy
Past	copied
Present Participle	copying
Past Participle	copied
Present:
I	copy
You	copy
He, She, It	copies
We	copy
You	copy
They	copy

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns represent specific people or things. We use them depending on:

• number: singular (eg: I) or plural (eg: we)
• person: 1st person (eg: I), 2nd person (eg: you) or 3rd person (eg: he)
• gender: male (eg: he), female (eg: she) or neuter (eg: it)
• case: subject (eg: we) or object (eg: us)

We use personal pronouns in place of the person or people that we are talking about. My name is Josef but when I am talking about myself I almost always use "I" or "me", not "Josef". When I am talking direct to you, I almost always use "you", not your name. When I am talking about another person, say John, I may start with "John" but then use "he" or "him". And so on.

Here are the personal pronouns, followed by some example sentences:

number	person	gender	personal pronouns
			subject	object
singular	1st	male/ female	I	me
	2nd	male/ female	you	you
	3rd	male	he	him
		female	she	her
		neuter	it	it
plural	1st	male/ female	we	us
	2nd	male/ female	you	you
	3rd	male/ female/ neuter	they	them

Examples (in each pair, the first sentence shows a subject pronoun, the second an object pronoun):

• I like coffee. / John helped me.
• Do you like coffee? / John loves you.
• He runs fast. / Did Ram beat him?
• She is clever. / Does Mary know her?
• It doesn't work. / Can the man fix it?
• We went home. / Anthony drove us.
• Do you need a table for three? / Did John and Mary beat you at doubles?
• They played doubles. / John and Mary beat them.

When we are talking about a single thing, we almost always use it. However, there are a few exceptions. We may sometimes refer to an animal as he/him orshe/her, especially if the animal is domesticated or a pet. Ships (and some other vessels or vehicles) as well as some countries are often treated as female and referred to as she/her. Here are some examples:

• This is our dog Rusty. He's an Alsatian.
• The Titanic was a great ship but she sank on her first voyage.
• My first car was a Mini and I treated her like my wife.
• Thailand has now opened her border with Cambodia.

For a single person, sometimes we don't know whether to use he or she.

There are several solutions to this:

• If a teacher needs help, he or she should see the principal.
• If a teacher needs help, he should see the principal.
• If a teacher needs help, they should see the principal.

We often use it to introduce a remark:

• It is nice to have a holiday sometimes.
• It is important to dress well.
• It's difficult to find a job.
• Is it normal to see them together?
• It didn't take long to walk here.

We also often use it to talk about the weather, temperature, time and distance:

• It's raining.
• It will probably be hot tomorrow.
• Is it nine o'clock yet?
• It's 50 kilometres from here to Cambridge.