Download The verb phrase I: verbs 1. Introduction Verbs, or verbals, are

Grammar, week 2
Spring 2010
SIS English
Aalborg University
The verb phrase I: verbs
1. Introduction
Verbs, or verbals, are considered to be the most important elements in the building up of a clause
or sentence. The legendary grammarian, Otto Jespersen, even referred to verbals as the life-giving
elements of language in his book The Philosophy of Grammar.
2. Simple vs. complex verb phrases: recap
A simple verb phrase consists of one verb only while a complex one consists of at least two verbs.
In complex verb phrases, the rightmost verb is the head, or main verb, because it provides the
primary communicative content (it is also known as a full verb or a lexical verb), while all other
verbs in the verb phrase are premodifying auxiliary verbs. Here are some examples:
(1) Simple verb phrases
a. After all these years, Britney Spears still sucks!
b. The ninja's head suddenly exploded.
c. But the man is a complete idiot
d. Be wewy, wewy quiet, Elmer Fudd said
e. Before the Martians attacked Earth, the Eiffel Tower stood in Paris.
(2) Complex verb phrases
a. I am an evil giraffe, and I shall eat all the leaves on this tree so other giraffes will starve to
death.
b. I am hunting wabbits, Elmer Fudd said
c. The ugly alien was pointing a death ray gun at me, and told me I would be buried alive in
the red sands of Mars
d. I have eaten all the leaves on this tree, for I am an evil giraffe
e. I could have been there, but I was sleeping
Complex verb phrases may moreover be discontinuous, meaning that they are split up in two (or
sometimes more) parts – often by an intervening adverbial:
(3)
a. When Jaden Korr arrived, the rancor had already eaten the Mining Guild elders
b. You will not get away with that!
c. Britney Spears should never be frigging allowed to sing again
3. Verbal grammatical categories and the function of verb phrases
The main function of verb phrases is to describe situations, In contrast noun phrases, or nominals,
refer to the participants in situations and events. In that sense the verb phrase provides the specific
relations among the participants in the situation. You can see how this works through the following
exercise, which is commonly known as a commutation test:
Insert different verbs, such as HAVE, EAT, BUY, WANT, KILL, BE into the empty slot in the
following syntactic frame:
[Peter ____ an ice cream]
In addition to this primary function, which is called predication, verbals cover a number of other
communicative functions, which are associated with a number of grammatical categories which
are listed here for your convenience in terms of their functions (the book offers a formal
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Grammar, week 2
Spring 2010
SIS English
Aalborg University
perspective):
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Tense: the location of the situation in time relative to the moment of speech
◦ Past tense: located the situation in the past of the moment of speech
◦ Present tense: locates the situation in the present of the moment of speech
◦ Future tense: locates the situation in the future of the moment of speech (note, many
grammarians argue that there is no future tense in English)
Aspect: whether the situation expressed is complete or incomplete:
◦ Perfect aspect: typically expresses some sort of completed situation.
◦ Progressive aspect: typically indicates that the situation is still happening or going on.
◦ Mood and modality: expresses how real or unreal the situation is and whether, if unreal,
it is desired/undesired or likely/unlikely.
Person and number: specifies the nature of the subject in terms of quantity (one or more –
number) and quality (is it the speaker, the addressee or a third person – person)
Voice/diathesis: this one is tricky to explain at this level, but it has to do with whether or not
the participant who acts in the situation (aka. the AGENT) is important enough to be the
subject or whether the victim (aka. the PATIENT) should be the subject.
4. The structure of verb phrases and the auxiliary vs. main verb distinction
So, the components of complex verb phrases are main verbs and auxiliary verbs.
4.1 The structure of VPs
As mentioned above, the structure is such that the main verb is the rightmost one, and the
auxuliaries appear to its left as premodifiers:
VP
auxiliaries
main verb
As mentioned in the book, the order of auxiliaries is fixed in complex verb phrases with more than
one auxiliary verb in them:
VP
AUX
modal + infinitive
AUX
HAVE + past part.
AUX
BE + pres.part
AUX
main verb
BE + past part.
What this means is that modal verbs are followed by verbs in the infinitive, and in perfect aspect
constructions, HAVE is followed by a past participle, while in progressive aspect constructions BE
is followed by a present participle, while, finally, in passive voice constructions, BE is followed by
a past participle, and then these constructions can be combined following the fixed order above:
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[modal + infinitive] + [HAVE + past part.] = [modal HAVE past part.] as in may have killed
[modal + infinitive] + [BE + pres.part.] = [modal BE pres.part] as in may be killing
[modal + infinitive] + [BE + past part.] = [modal BE past part.] as in may be killed
[modal + infinitive] + [HAVE + past part.] + [BE pres.part.] = [modal HAVE BEEN
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Grammar, week 2
Spring 2010
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SIS English
Aalborg University
pres.part] as in may have been killing
[modal + infinitive] + [HAVE + past part.] + [BE past part.] = [modal HAVE BEEN past
part.] as in may have been killed
[HAVE + past part.] + [BE + past part.] = [HAVE BEEN past part.] as in has been killed
[HAVE + past part.] + [BE + past part.] = [HAVE BEEN pres. part.] as in has been killing
[BE + pres.part.] + [BE + past part.] = [BE BEING past part.] as in is being killed
etc.
4.2 Auxiliaries vs. main verbs
In terms of what auxuliary verbs and main verbs do in verb phrases, one could say that the main
verb describes the situation itself, while the auxiliaries add certain perspectives on it. Consider:
(4)
a. The zomies were eating brains
b. Daniel-san has just finished beating up the Cobra Kai guy
In (4a), EAT indicates that the situation is that of eating, while past tense 'was' tells us that this took
place in the past, and 'was' also tells us, because it is followed by a present participle, that the eating
was still in progress. In (4b), FINISH indicates that the situation is that of beating up someone, and
present tense 'has' shows us that the situation is relative to the now, and, because it is followd by a
past participle, 'has' also indicates that the situation is complete before the now.
4.2.1 Auxiliaries
Here are the main auxiliaries of English (there are more auxiliaries though):
(5)
have, be, do, may, must, shall, will, can
HAVE, BE, and DO are called primary verbs, because they may be used as both main verbs and
auxiliary verbs, and the rest are called modal verbs, as they are used to express various types of
modality.
4.2.2 Full verbs
Full verbs are also divided into different classes according to the number and type of constituents
they tend to appear with (the technical term for this is transitivity, or valency):
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linking verb/copula verb: appears with subject complements
intransitive verbs: do not appear with anything except non-obligatory adverbials
transitive verbs: require objects of some sort
◦ monotransitive verb: requires a direct object
◦ ditransitive verb: requires an indirect object and a direct object
◦ complex transitive verb: requires a direct object and an object complement
◦ directional verb: requires a direct object and an obligatory locative or directional
adverbial
◦ transactional complex transitive verb: requires an indirect object and an adverbial
which expresses the patient (like 'PROVIDE somebody with something')
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Grammar, week 2
Spring 2010
SIS English
Aalborg University
5. Verb morphology
Morphology is to do with the form of words, and there are two types of morphology:
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inflectional morphology: inflections and conjugations of words (like adding an '-s' to a
noun to pluralize it or an '-ed' to a verb to indicate past tense)
derivational morphology: deriving new words from other words by adding parts to them
(like adding '-ness' to the adjective 'happy' to create the noun 'happiness')
Verbal inflectional morphology can be tricky. The regular verbs are straightforward enough. There
are four main forms:
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the base form (the verb itself with nothing added to it) which has the following functions:
◦ the infinitive as in I like to move it, move it.
◦ present tense (but not in 3rd person singular) as in Jedi knights carry lighsabers
◦ the imperative as in Engage! (you know that's what Captain Picard always says)
◦ the subjunctive as in I demand that he be released
the -s form which is used in the present tense in 3rd person singular as in Simon says clap
your hands
the -ed form which has the following functions:
◦ past tense as in I used to love her, but I had to kill her
◦ past participle as in We have landed on Mars
present participle (or -ing form) which covers a number of functions
This is easy enough, but, of course, there is a whole bunch of irregular verbs that go all over the
place. Some of them seem to follow certain patterns while others are totally idiosyncratic. The only
way to learn how to handle these is to learn them by heart.
6. Finiteness
When a verb phrase is finite, it is inflected in terms of tense/number/person, while a finite verb
phrase is not inflected in terms of tense/number/person. In the case of simple verb phrases, it is
quite easy, because we just look at the only verb there. In complex verb phrase, we look at the very
first (or the leftmost) auxiliary verb. Note that, in English, modal verbs are always finite.
7. Sentence of the week
“Muslim women should not be allowed to wear face-covering veils in public facilities, a French
parliament report says.”
8. What's next?
Next time, we will deal primarily with tense and aspect, looking at perfect and imperfect aspect and
how they add perspectives of completion and incompletion to the situation expressed by the verb
phrase.
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