Scarlett Archer

Thankyou greatly to Gerri Lynn Baxter for providing this much needed verbal outline!

STRONG VS. WEAK VERBS

Strong verbs change their vowel sounds when they switch tense:

swim
swam
swum

sing
sang
sung

ride
rode
ridden

etc. and so on.

Weak verbs add a suffex to switch tense:

add
added
added

walk
walked
walked

zoom
zoomed
zoomed

etc., and so on.

Then there are the irregular verbs that change their entire spelling when switching tenses:

is
was
been

has
had
had

etc., and so on.

ACTION VS. LINKING VERBS

What you guys are really squawking about in this part of the thread are linking verbs versus action verbs. As from the Grammar Bytes! website, "Linking verbs do not express action." The direct Linking Verb link. The action isn't carried on the verb. Read the page because the linking issue isn't as straight forward as just saying to be is always a linking verb.

ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION

Active sentences have the construction:

Actor action acted upon.

Passive sentences have the construction:

Acted upon (to be) action actor.

or

Acted upon (to be) actor action.

Examples:

Living with gusto is what many Americans yearn for.

Many Americans yearn to live with gusto.

Mary pushed the table across the room.

The table was pushed across the room by Mary.

See the difference?

WHEN THE BE VERB IS HELPING

Beyond simple tenses(past, present, and future), to be and to have are used to indicate sequence.

I'll use a weak verb, walk, and a strong verb, sing, for my examples

Simple Tense
This tense is the normal tense for past, present, and future. No helping verbs needed.

He walked.
He walks.
He will walk.

He sang.
He sings.
He will sing.

Perfect Tense
This tense is used to indicate action previous to another action.

He had walked.
He has walked.
He will have walked.

He had sung.
He has sung.
He will have sung.

Progressive Tense
This tense is used to indicate action that started earlier in the sequence, then continues onward into the future.

He was walking.
He is walking.
He will be walking.

He was singing.
He is singing.
He will be singing.

Perfect Progressive Tense
This tense is a combination of the perfect, something that started before the current sequence, and is ongoing.

He had been walking.
He has been walking.
He will have been walking.

He had been singing.
He has been singing.
He will be singing.

PLEASE NOTICE THAT WHEN THE BE AND HAVE VERBS ARE USED IN THESE MANNERS THAT THEY ARE NOT PASSIVE, WEAK, OR ANYTHING ELSE!

There. Please, folks, don't just guess and assign random meanings. Most of these answers are a click away on google, or you can come ask me- email me at nylter1 [at] gmail.com. I'm not doing much with this masters in linguistics, anyway.

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