A verb group

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 3 §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 do 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 do 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.