Verbs and Verb Phrases

Activity 5.1 shows that verbs can take a large number of different forms in sentences.  In fact, the activity doesn’t even provide examples of all the different types.  Nevertheless, we can say that every verb has a basic form, and various texts refer to the basic forms in various ways: the base form, the verb stem, and the infinitive.  By whatever name you call it, we are talking about the form you’d find in the dictionary if you were to look up a new verb to get its meaning.  For example, if we are reading and we don’t know what She will have learned her lesson means, we would likely look up only learn.  Let’s try it for real with what may be unfamiliar verbs.

Activity 5.2: Identifying the Base form

For each sentence below, identify what you would look up in the dictionary to learn the meanings of the verbs.

Click on the verbs in each sentence. When you select the verb correctly, a text box will appear next to the sentence number at the bottom. Type in the word you would look up in a dictionary to define each verb, then assess your answer by clicking on the Check button.

A link for an on-line dictionary will appear with correct answers.

Why are there various ways to refer to this form?  Well, each term seeks to capture a different feature of the form.  The term base form highlights the fact that this is, in fact, the most fundamental form that a verb can take, and that is after all, why it is the form in the dictionary.  It also comes from the linguistics field of morphology, where the word base refers to any word form that can take affixes.  Bases include both roots and stems, and the fact that stem is a hyponym of base no doubt accounts for the use of that term in some texts.  The word infinitive comes from Latin roots and means “without an end.”  Since the basic form of the verb is the form that doesn’t have any suffixes attached to it yet, it is a verb without endings, so it is infinitive.

Still, even though every verb has a base form, we rarely use just that form in a sentence.  We do, in fact, use many different forms in sentences.  Let’s take a look at those forms and see why there are so many.

Activity 5.3: Discovering the Various Forms

Exercise A: Click on the complete verb in each sentence. As you find the verbs in each sentence,  a checkmark will show when you are correct.

What do all the verbs have in common? What is different about each one?

Page 3