Category of verbs in English

 

In our attempt to describe and explain the English gerund, it is necessary to start with a broader category to which it belongs. Since the gerund is an English verb form we first move our attention to English verbs. Although the gerund is not necessarily a typical verb, it is normally classified under the category of verbs. This is the reason why we start our analysis of gerund with elaborating on English verbs.

The term grammatical category is often used by linguists to denote a certain group of elements recognized in the description of particular languages. There are differing views on what grammatical categories really stand for, how many of them there are, or how to classify them. Still, most grammarians have for a long time operated with nine word classes as main grammatical categories, which are also called parts of speech: noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, article and interjection. (Štekauer, 2000)

Morphologically, verbs can be characterized by the categories (sometimes called the secondary grammatical categories) of:

  • tense
  • person
  • number
  • mood
  • voice
  • aspect.

Syntactically, verbs can be defined as words functioning as the head of the so-called verb phrase. A verb phrase consists of one or more verbs, and operates as the verb in the clause. Each verb may appear in such a phrase in several different forms:

  • a base form (e.g. pay)
  • an –s form (pays)
  • a past form (payed)
  • an ing-form (paying)
  • a past/passive (-ed) participle (payed).

 

 Functions of verb forms

 

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik (1992:70) indicate all possible functions of the English verb forms (which we have talked about in connection with full verbs) in a tabular form:

 

Table 1            Functions of verb forms

FORM

EXAMPLE

FUNCTIONS

(1) base

call

drink

put

(a) all the present tense except 3rd person singular: I/you/we/they call

(b) imperative: Call at once

(c) subjunctive: He demanded that she call him

(d) infinitive; the bare infinitive: He may call; and the to-infinitive: He wants her to call

(2) –s form (3rd person singular present)

calls

drinks

puts

3rd person singular present tense: He/she/it calls

(3) past

called

drank

put

past tense: He called yesterday

(4) –ing participle (present participle)

calling

drinking

putting

(a) progressive aspect: He’s calling you

(b)non-finite –ing clauses: Calling a spade a spade

(5) –ed participle (past participle)

called

drunk

put

(a) perfective aspect: He has drunk the water

(b) passive voice: He is called
 

3.)