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Lesson 25

VERBS AND ADVERBS

Verb comes from the Latin verbum, which means "word". Verbs are the one class of words that can be used alone and still express a complete thought; without them no thought could be presented. They are the indispensable words. Without verbs no action could be expressed, no condition or state of existence could be described in speech. Why not? Because the verb is that part of speech which sets forth an action, a condition, or a state. But if it is the most important, it is also the most involved and difficult of the eight parts of speech. Verbs may be either transitive or intransitive. They undergo change or are inflected to show mood, tense, voice, person, and number. Certainly no thorough discussion can be given here on all or even one of these features of verbs, but some information will be given that will aid in correcting some of the more common errors made in the use of verbs.

Many verbs may express an action that passes over to a person or thing, as the verb paints in He paints portraits; or verbs may express an action that does not pass over to

anything else but is limited to the doer, as in He paints well. When the action is expressed as passing over, the verb is transitive. In other words, such verbs have objects that receive the action expressed by the verb. When the action does not pass over, we say the verb is intransitive. Such verbs do not have objects. Most verbs in English may be either transitive or intransitive, depending on the way they are used in a sentence.

The verb indicates time, which is called tense. It shows the time of the action expressed by the verb, or the time of the condition indicated in the sentence. The verb is refers to the state of the person or thing spoken of at the present time, whereas was refers to its state in the past. Most verbs in English form the past merely by adding d or ed. Only one out of about every forty verbs does not form its past by adding d or ed. Other tenses shown by verbs are future, past perfect, present perfect, and future perfect.

There is one form of the verb that is very often used incorrectly, the past participle. Great care should be exercised not to use this form of the verb instead of the past tense. One should not say I seen it, but I saw it; not I done it, but I did it. Past participles (such as seen and done) are used with forms of the verb to be. When the past participle is used in relation to past time, have or had should precede it. In the above illustration, the past tense of see is saw, and not seen; the past tense of do is did, and not done.

The form of the verb that indicates more than one person is called plural. The plural of the singular verb am or is is are. But most verbs do not have that many forms in English. Most English verbs have the same form for the first and second person and the plural of all persons, such as run. We say, I run, you run, he runs, we run, you run, they run.

A common error is the use of the third person singular form of the verb, is, has, and so forth, with you. This should

never be done. Why? Because the rule is that the verb should agree in number (that is, singular or plural) with its subject. You always takes the plural form of the verb, whether the you addressed is one or many. That this is true of modern English is shown by Goodspeed's rendering of Jesus' words recorded at Matthew 14:31 and 17:20: "Jesus . . . said to him [the word him shows Jesus was talking to only one], 'Why did you waver? You have so little faith!'" Here the expression you have refers only to Peter; but later Jesus addressed the same words to a number of his disciples: "He said to them [the word them shows Jesus was talking to more than one person], 'Because you have so little faith.'" Notice that Jesus did not say "You has" even when he addressed Peter alone. With the word you the plural form of the verb should always be used.

Many of the errors made in the use of verbs are due to a failure to make subject and verb agree in number. A common error is, "He don't" (He do not). Do is plural, he is singular. Say, "He doesn't." Also watch such subjects as "each", "each one," "every one," etc. They are singular, and take the singular verb form.

A verb alone, such as run, may not express precisely what one has in mind. He may wish the running to be done with extra speed; so he would say, "Run fast." Or he may wish to state when he wants the running to be done and say, "Run now." Or he may wish to state where the running is to be done; then he would say, "Run here." These words which are added to the verb to limit, qualify, intensify or shade down the meaning of it are said to modify it and are called adverbs. Adverbs are used to modify not only verbs, but also adjectives and other adverbs.

Without adverbs much of the life, color and understanding of our sentences would fade; the details of our verbs, adjectives and other adverbs would be unknown. Usually an adverb answers how, when, where, how much, or why.

Some adverbs have two forms, such as near and nearly, late and lately, quick and quickly, hard and hardly. For

that reason such expressions as "Drive slow" and "Speak loud" are correct. Not all adverbs may end in ly. Some have only the ly form and others have no ly form. Like adjectives, adverbs have comparison. Thus one has: quickly, more quickly, most quickly; religiously, less religiously, least religiously. Almost all adverbs form the comparative degree by the use of more or less, and the superlative by the use of most or least. However, those without the ly ending show comparison in the same manner as adjectives, that is, by adding er or est.