Author Confessions: All the Verbs!
Did you realize that all verbs are not created equal? I didn’t even realize that there were so many different categories of verbs. Where was I in those high school English classes I loved so much that this seemed new to me?
Here are the eleven types of verbs that are used in the English language and some examples of them.
Action Verbs
As you might imagine, these refer to action.
- Physical actions: run, walk, jump, kick, eat, sleep, push
- Mental actions: think, talk, speak, try, study
- Management actions: advised, counseled, planned, headed
Stative Verbs
These are more about a state of being or condition and describe qualities , opinions, beliefs and emotions and well as the state of existence.
Examples: feel, appear, have, smell, need, see, appreciate, and look.
Linking Verbs
This is technically a subcatogory of a stative verb. Also known as a copular verb, linking verbs establish a relationship between the subject and the rest of the sentence.
Common linking verbs include: do/did, feel/felt, get/got, has/have/had (told you this would show up again!), seem/seems/seemed.
Transitive Verbs
These verbs require an object to receive an action, aka direct object.
Examples include: address, borrow, bring, raise, offer, pay, write, and have. (wait, wasn’t have also a stative verb? Hmmm. Just wait, you’ll see that one again!)
Intransitive Verbs
Not needing a direct object to make sense, intransitive verbs can answer questions like where, when hoe or how long. They don’t make sense with an object attached to them.
Examples are: yawn, live, cry, laugh, stand, wait, disagree. They can be modified by adverb, adverbial clauses or prepositional phrases.
Helping Verbs (Auxiliary)
These verbs are just really helpful. Who doesn’t want some help? Apparently, the English language does!
They work with other verbs and include: am/be, has/had (told you this would appear again!), was/were/would, did/do/does, can/could.
Modal Verbs
This is a subgroup of helping verbs that give a mood to the sentence (shouldn’t it be moodal verb then? Just saying…).
These include: can/could, may/might, must, ought to, shall/should, will/would.
Regular Verbs
These verbs have the distinction of having a past tense ending in -d, -ed, or -t.
Examples include: act/acted, fix/fixed, help/helped, beg/begged, sleep/slept, cry/cried. The spelling can slightly change when going to the past tense.
Irregular Verbs
These are the opposite of regular and do not end in -d, -ed, or -t.
These include:
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- Be – am, is, are, was, were, being, been
- Eat – ate, eaten
- Fly – flew, flown
- Catch – caught
- Set – set
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Phrasal Verbs
These amazing verbs combine with an adverb or a preposition to generate a new meaning.
Some examples include: bear with (be patient), break off (end a relationship), zone out (dissociate from a situation, wrap up (cover in paper), go ahead (proceed).
Infinitives
Now why include this when these are not even verbs? Hmmm? Curious minds want to know! They might be better called costumed, or disguised verbs, or perhaps pretending verbs. The most common marker seems to be the use of the word “to” to proceed the verb.
Examples: to proceed (as used in the previous sentence), to plan, to run, to walk, to dance, to sing…
Overused Verbs
Are you as confused as I am about all these verbs? The reality is some can be overused in a manuscript so understanding how a verb is used can help the author find alternative verbs that might be substituted for the more commonly overused ones that include: see/sees, hear/heard, feel/felt, had/have, look/looked, know/knew.
Sometimes with all the verbs available, an author can default to more common, simple ones. Verbs move a story forward so using them wisely can make the more enjoyable for the reader.