What are verbs and verb tenses?

Answer 1

Because English is syntactic, the part of speech of a particular word may be determined by how it is used. In a general way, grammar in English is based on cognition. An English speakers easily understand the difference between, "Would you like a run?" and "Can you run like a deer?" In the first sentence like is a verb. In the second, (can) run is the verb. Verbs can be transitive, meaning they have direct objects which receive the action, (Can you run a store?) or be intransitive, with no object, "Can you run?" They can be "state of being" as in "That is the man."

There are also several "verbals," words describing action that can used as nouns, and adjectives. Such as "He wants to run." This is an infinitive form used as a noun. In "Add beaten eggs," beaten is a past participle used as an adjective, and "Beating eggs is hard work," is a verb form called a gerund, an -ing form used as a noun. Again cognition is the key. If you understand that the eggs were beaten, or that someone is complaining that doing the process is difficult, the designation gerund, or participle, scarcely matters.

In general, we designate as verb a word that expresses action or state of being. Because English has few inflections of the verb itself to express different tenses or modes of the verb, we have the auxiliaries as exampled by has, will, should and so on that help modify the exact tense or mode of the verb. Together with the verb auxiliaries, they form a verb phrase such as "will have run" or "is running. "

Adverbs describe how the verb is taking place: He was running fast. They also can describe conditions of the verb action, early, late, or how it was done, badly, well. Many different words, including whole phrases can take on adverb function, Only if he can be captain, will he play.

English, unlike many older languages, did not develop by prescriptive, scholarly means. It was the amalgram of several Germanic languages with an influx of considerable Viking, French, Latin, and several other languages. It has only been in the past century that scholars have stopped trying to understand English by means of applying Latin terms such as subjunctive and predicate. In fact, early attempts at this "new grammar" stated that there was no "prescriptive" way that English works. One could only describe it. They also state that language is an oral thing, and written forms of it are artificial. Since this new view emerged, means of classifying the parts of speech in English has changed with each new system that comes into use and there have been many. It is an embarrassment of riches. It prevents public school teachers from having confidence in a common base to teach students how our language works. Analysis of English seems to have retreated to the university level of instruction, and even there it is segregated to narrow fields of study. And it does not help that English is continuing to change. New vocabulary and usages are heard every day on public media.

Is there any standard in Modern English? In formal circumstances, careful attention to the latest stylebooks, and grammatical forms help convey competence of the communicator and respect for the recipient. Proofreaders would have no reason to exist if this were not so. But clarity and effectiveness are still the most important criteria. See Mark Twain's essay describing the power of the "right word."

Answer 2

Verbs are words that express action, occurrence, or state of being in a sentence. Verb tenses convey the time of the action or state being described – past, present, or future. Tenses include simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous forms.