A Verb Group (Clause Structure) Recognize parts that together form the predicate ▼ Explanation of term A verb group: serves as the predicate of the clause and expresses an action or activity and one or more of the following: o aspect—how the activity relates to time (ongoing, continuous, repetitive, habitual) is walking, has walked, had been walking o mood—opinion, prediction, or inference about the action in the clause we may walk, we should walk, we will walk (modals) o voice—whether the focus or interest is the agent (active verb) or the patient (passive verb) in regard to the action taken She walked her dog The dog was walked twice a day A verb group takes form as a verb and one or more auxiliaries: a modal, have or be We may have been walking A verb phrase: In linguistic description, includes the verb group and its dependents: o complements—elements required by the verb to make sense—a direct object, an indirect object, apredicate complement such as a locational prepositional phrase or a predicate adjective, an infinitive or gerund (non-finite clause) We have been walking the dog o adjuncts—elements that modify (are closely related to) the verb but are not essential— adverbs (manner, frequency, degree and so on) We have been walking routinely The predicate: In traditional description, the predicate includes the subject, the verb or verb group and its dependents—adverbs, objects and phrases related to the action of the verb In linguistic description, the predicate is a function that takes form as a verb or verb group Only! A Verb Group Tense formed with Auxiliary Verb(s) Tense—Inflection vs Auxiliary INFLECTED TENSE (SUFFIXED) In many languages, verb tenses are formed by inflection (adding a suffix or some other kind of marking) English has only two tenses formed this way—present and past tense PRESENT We walk to work every morning (plain form) He walks to work every morning (plain form + 3rd per sing.) PAST We walked to work every morning (past form) These tenses express "factual" information without reference to the flow of time or opinion about the activity AUXILIARY—TENSE, ASPECT, MOOD The other "tenses" are formed with auxiliary verbs and a secondary verb form (bare, -ing or -ed) The auxiliaries combine to express tense, mood and aspect See Tense, Mood & Aspect below PROGRESSIVE (ASPECT) We are walking to work We have been walking to work PERFECT (ASPECT) We have finished our walk We will have finished walking FUTURE / PREDICTION (MOOD) We will finish in an hour She may have finished her walk already CONDITIONAL (MOOD) If I could, I would walk you We wouldn't be walking now, if we had put gas in the car earlier Verb Group Auxiliary Combinations with Lexical Verb Auxiliaries combine with lexical verbs to express tense AUXILIARY–MODAL MODAL — will, would, may, might,can, could, shall, should, ought AUXILIARY–PERFECT PERFECT — has, have, had AUXILIARY–BE PROGRESSIVE— is / are, was / were, been AUXILIARY–BE PASSIVE — is / are, was / were, been LEXICAL VERB FORM A verb takes plain form, past, and participle form, 3rd person plural suffix walk(s) (present, imperative, subjunctive) walked (past form) was was was walked (past participle) walking (pres participle) being walked has walked had walked has been walking had been walking has been being will walked walk (plain form) will be will have will have walking (pres participle) walked been Also see Be Copula and "Be"–Lexical or Auxiliary? lexical (Adj) — having meaning (one that could be found in a dictionary) (Huddleson §2.3) (Swan 85) (Huddleston "catenative auxiliaries" 14 §4.2.2) The auxiliary is the main verb which takes a nonfinite complement He [V is [nonfiniteworking]] walked Verb Group Auxiliary and Next Verb Form Auxiliary Determines Next Verb Form AUXILIARY + NEXT FORM TYPE MODAL ⇒ PLAIN FORM — will, would, may, might,can, could, shall, should, ought PRES / (FUTURE) PAST PERFECT Charlie will ⇒ raise his hand Charlie would ⇒ rai se his hand Charlie will ⇒ have raised his hand by then (future perfect) Charlie would ⇒ have raised his hand (conditional perfect) ⇒ PAST PARTICIPLE — has, have, had PERFECT PROGRESSIVE PARTICIPLE ⇒ GERUND- — is / are, was / were, been ⇒ PAST PARTICIPLE — is / are, was / were, been PASSIVE Charlie has ⇒ raised his hand Charlie had ⇒ raise d his hand Charlie had ⇒ raised his hand Charlie is ⇒ raising his hand Charlie was ⇒ raisi ng his hand Charlie had been ⇒raising his hand His hand Is ⇒raised His hand was ⇒raised Charlie's hand has been⇒raised Charlie's hand had been⇒raised Tense, Mood & Aspect How tense, aspect and mood affect the meaning of a verb? Auxiliaries in verb groups express tense, aspect, mood and voice SYSTEM — APPROXIMATE FUNCTION Not marked EXAMPLE It rains (fact, always, whenever) MARKED BY INFLECTION (SUFFIXES) OR VERB COMBINATIONS TENSE temporal location Locates the action or event in a period of It rains (fact, general truth) time It rained (fact, past, done) ASPECT temporal flow Takes an internal experience view of how It was raining (progressive aspect) ongoing experience an activity relates to time —ongoing, It has rained (perfect aspect) has continuing relevance continuous, repetitive, habitual It is not It used to rain (habitual aspect) was repetitive limited to or relative to a single point in time MOOD non-factual assertions Adds opinion, prediction, or inference to It may stop raining in a few minutes (prediction, opinion) the clause MARKED BY STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND VERB COMBINATIONS VOICE Allows placing either the "patient" focus on agent or patient (w/ passive verb) in the subject position or the "agent" (w/activeverb) in the subject position Her prediction was proved wrong by the rain (passive) The rain proved her prediction wrong (active) agent—the person or thing that takes action to something (He sang a song for them The wind blew the leaves.) patient ("theme")—the person or thing that is affected by the action denoted by the predicate The thing acted upon (He sang a song for them ) aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates to the flow of time mood is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates to the flow of time