Verbs and its types

Verbs are words that express an action or a state of being. They are an essential part to complete a sentence.

The verbs can be categorized as –

• Action Verbs
• Helping verbs  or Auxiliary  verbs
• Linking Verbs

A brief description of all these subtypes is give below.

Action verbs

These are the words which express some action or possession.

For Example: run, walk, give, take, eat and sleep etc. express action while have, own, etc. express possession.

The action verbs are further sub- categorized in two categories.

Transitive verbs

A verb which is always followed by a noun that receives its action is called as Transitive Vers. This noun is called the direct object.

Example:

He raised his hand when the teacher asked question.

(The verb is raised. Her hand is an object receiving the verb’s action. Therefore, raised is a transitive verb)

Some more examples are –

• He pulled the chair.
• She rode the car.
• I have made these cookies
• He caught the school bus.

Transitive verbs sometimes have indirect objects, which name the object to whom or for whom the action was done.

Example:  He gave Rosy his books.

(The verb is ‘gave’. The direct object is the books. [What did he give? the books]. The indirect object is Rosy. (To whom he gave the books)

Intransitive verbs

A verb which has a direct or an indirect object. It may be followed by an adverb or adverbial phrase.

For Example:

• He walked out slowly from his room.

(Here the verb is walk. The words slowly from his room modify the verb. But there is no object that receives the action.)

Some more examples are –

• The baby cried.
• She told a joke.
• They laughed.

Linking verbs:

A linking verb is a verb which connects the subject of a sentence to a noun or adjective that describes it. The most common linking verbs are ‘to be verbs’.  They don’t express any action.

• John is a cricket fan.
• The cake smells divine.
• He is the President.
• You seem nervous.

Helping verbs or Auxiliary Verbs

These are the verbs which always need a main verb to follow.  They convey additional information regarding aspects of possibility (can, could, etc.)

Examples:

• He can’t play well.
• Could I get a glass of water?
• I don’t have a car.
• I shall go now.
• Who had won the election?

The form of the verb remains same in Simple present tense and simple future tense whereas it changes in simple past tense.

In simple past tense, verbs are categorized in two categories:

Regular Verbs

Irregular Verbs

Their brief description is given below:

Regular Verbs: These are the verbs which can be converted to their past form by adding “d” or “ed” at their end.

Examples:  Walk, Talk, Play, enjoy. Their past form is walked, talked, played and enjoyed respectively.

Irregular Verbs: These are the verbs which cannot be converted to their past form by adding “ed” or “d” at their end.

Examples:  see, eat, run, write etc. Their past form is saw, ate, ran and wrote respectively.