Word Search

WORD SEARCH

To prepare for this unit’s concepts and activities, see if you can identify the names of some types of verb in the word

WORD SEARCH

To prepare for this unit’s concepts and activities, see if you can identify the names of some types of verb in the word

The Eighteen Verb Types

Part 1 Recognising English Verbs

Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

What are the eighteen types of English verb? Seven Rules for Grammatical Verbs

Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

In this tutorial, we will:

• outline the key features of verbs in English
• introduce five strategies for accurate verb identification
• explore verb meaning, form and function

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

What are the defining features of verbs?

• verbs are a main word class

He’s swimming well.

• verbs are the key building blocks of sentences

Swimming is easy for him.

• verbs describe actions, occurrences or states of being
• “The student submitted the essay.”
• “Next week’s examination is cancelled.”
• “Those grades angered the professor.”
• verbs indicate tense, aspect, agreement and modality
• “Mr Smith has cancelled his class today.”
• “Mr Smith cancelled his class yesterday.”

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

Strategy 1: Understand Verb Distribution

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

Strategy 2: Learn the Five Verb Functions

1. Verbs communicate actions, occurrences and states of being
2. Verbs make grammatical clauses and sentences

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

Strategy 2: Learn the Five Verb Functions

1. Verbs communicate actions, occurrences and states of being
2. Verbs make grammatical clauses and sentences
3. Verb express tense and aspect

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

Strategy 2: Learn the Five Verb Functions

1. Verbs communicate actions, occurrences and states of being
2. Verbs make grammatical clauses and sentences
3. Verb express tense and aspect
4. Verbs demonstrate modality

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

Strategy 2: Learn the Five Verb Functions

1. Verbs communicate actions, occurrences and states of being
2. Verbs make grammatical clauses and sentences
3. Verb express tense and aspect
4. Verbs demonstrate modality
5. Verbs show agreement with nouns

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

Strategy 3: Memorise the Seven Verb Forms

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

Strategy 4: Learn the Five Verb Valencies

• verb valency = how many noun-phrase arguments a verb requires
• verb arguments = subjects and objects (direct, indirect, etc.)
• verb transitivity = whether a verb takes 1, 2, 3 or 4 arguments

Recognising English Verbs Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

Strategy 5: Study the Eighteen Verb Types

Review Which five strategies identify words as verbs?

• understand distribution, function and form
• study verb arguments, valency and transitivity
• memorise the eighteen verb types

Thinking back to the tutorial “Which five strategies identify words as verbs?” as well as everything we’ve discussed, prepare a short (3-5 minute) presentation that summarises the five key strategies for verb identification.