Download Verbs I - University of Newcastle

Verbs – the engines of the
sentence
Revision & overview
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Enhancement Program, Newcastle
Business School
Some basic revision
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Remember that any construction intended to be a
sentence (a complete idea) should consist of a
subject (who) and a predicate (a verb and,
usually, an object). So, even the simplest kind of
sentence consists of an idea that could be
summed up as “who does what”. The “does” part
— the verb — is vital to this idea!
A sentence is the best kind of construction for
expressing an idea linked to a series of other
ideas in the framework of a discussion or
argument — the kind of writing required at
university level. A sentence must have a verb.
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
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Business School
Participles & auxiliaries
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Participle forms (e.g. — studying, selling) can
be very useful in communicating exactly when
something took place and for how long it
continued. They can also add variety to your
style when used to begin sentences. However,
you must remember to keep the subject of the
participle close by, so that there is no confusion
about which noun is the subject of the participle.
Otherwise, you will end up with a sentence like,
“Cooked to a crisp, Jane devoured the delicious
bacon.”
Verb auxiliaries (helpers) such as has, had,
will, be and been provide important ways of
altering tense.
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
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Business School
The range of verb tenses
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More complicated conditional verb forms (e.g. “She
would like to go to the beach tomorrow if the
weather is fine”) will be covered in a later series.
The easiest way to think of the most commonly used
English tenses is as a set of twelve tenses
composed of four sets of three. The four sets are:
simple, continuous, perfect and perfect
continuous. Each set or type includes a past,
present and future version of that type of verb
tense.
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
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Business School
Simple tenses: action limited to a
particular time
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The three most straightforward tenses are:
Present – I study hard every night. (regular activity)
She sells jeans at the market on
Saturdays. (regular activity)
Past – I studied hard last night.
She sold jeans at the market last Saturday.
Future – I will study hard tomorrow night.
She will sell jeans at the market next
Saturday.
Note that the simple present may also be used to refer to the future,
as in, ‘I fly to Singapore next Saturday’, so long as some word or
phrase suggestive of the future (‘tomorrow’, ‘in 2022’)is added.
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
Enhancement Program, Newcastle
Business School
Continuous tenses
Sometimes, we need to express continuing action — action going on for
a restricted period of time — in one of the three basic tenses listed in
the previous slide. The resulting tenses are called the continuous or,
sometimes, progressive tenses.
•
Present continuous – I am studying whenever possible this
trimester.
She is selling jeans at the market until she’s
saved her fare to Paris.
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Past continuous – Before the exams, I was studying hard every
night.
She was selling jeans at the market on
Saturdays until she found a better job.
•
Future continuous – I will be studying hard every night next year.
She will be selling jeans at the market
on Saturdays until Christmas.
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
Enhancement Program, Newcastle
Business School
Perfect tenses - role
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Another set of three tenses helps us to position a series
of actions more precisely in relation to each other.
For instance, sometimes we need a tense to help us to show
that an action that began in the past extends up to the
events of the present moment; then it is best to use the
present perfect tense.
Here is an example of the present perfect tense: “I have
taken the bus to the University of Newcastle and will be
there in ten minutes.” This sentence suggests that someone
only took the bus very recently and is actually still on it at the
time of speaking, perhaps on a mobile phone. So, the verb in
the sentence suggests both that action was begun in the
recent past and that the action involved is somehow still
current or relevant.
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
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Business School
Perfect tenses
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Present perfect: I have taken the bus to Callaghan for a lecture
and will be back later tonight.
(The subject’s action of taking a bus began in the past but is still
current.)
Past perfect: I took the bus to Callaghan for a lecture but then
returned home because I had left my textbooks on the table in the
hallway.
(One past event — the careless leaving behind of the textbooks —
took place before another past event, the speaker’s boarding of
the bus to Callaghan.)
Future Perfect: I am afraid that I will have left for Callaghan by
the time you arrive at my apartment.
(Here, the speaker is looking ahead to a time when his or her friend is
just arriving at the apartment in question but the speaker will already
have left. That is, the speaker is projecting himself or herself
forward to a time when his or her departure for Callaghan will
be in the past although it’s still in the future at the time of
speaking.)
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
Enhancement Program, Newcastle
Business School
Perfect continuous tenses
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What if you want to show that some
action for which one of the perfect
tenses is appropriate continues,
continued or will continue for
some time, perhaps in relation to
some other action? Then, you
should use one of the three
perfect continuous tenses.
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
Enhancement Program, Newcastle
Business School
Perfect continuous tenses – the range
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Present perfect continuous: I have been living in Australia for
three months.
(Here, the action of the sentence, living in Australia, has been going
on for a period of three months and is still occurring.)
Past perfect continuous: I had been living in Australia for three
months before I found my current flat.
(In this sentence, both actions are now in the past and were restricted
in duration, although the past continuous action, living in Australia,
occurred before the finding of the flat, an action restricted to a very
short time. The ‘had been’ before ‘living’ emphasises that it occurred
before the discovery of the flat where the speaker now lives.)
Future perfect continuous: If I stay in Australia until I graduate
from a second postgraduate program, I will have been living here
for three years.
(The speaker of this sentence is looking well ahead and viewing a
prolonged segment of action — living in Australia — from that vantage
point. In the more distant future, the immediate future will be in the
past.)
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
Enhancement Program, Newcastle
Business School
References:
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King, G. (2000). Good Grammar. Glasgow, UK:
HarperCollins.
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Thomson, A.J., & Martinet, A.V. (1977). A Practical English
Grammar (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: OUP.
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Associate Professor Jim Jose, Senior Lecturer, School of
Economics, Politics & Tourism, for his guidance through
my frequent reference to his Study Skills Online (2000).
For practice:
Murphy, R. (2004). English Grammar in Use (3rd ed.).
Cambridge, UK: CUP. Units 1-37
Devised by Jo Killmister, Skills
Enhancement Program, Newcastle
Business School