Writing Lessons & Advice: Types of Verbs
The insights into living life are a dime a dozen:
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” -Winston Churchill
“There is no passion to be found by playing small--in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” -Nelson Mandela
“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.” -Emily Dickenson
“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.” -Bruce Lee
“The greatest joy in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
Because a good life entails all kinds of action, written language and grammar have different types of categories to encompass our action words. This lesson is going to look into some of them.
Quick refresher: verbs are a part of speech (or word class) that refer to action or feeling. A subject and a verb are the basis of complete sentences.
Intransitive- intransitive verbs express action without an additional object. When a subject is paired with an intransitive verb and nothing else, a complete sentence or understood thought is formed. Examples:
Sparky ran.
I walked.
These are grammatically correct, albeit they’re very short and simple. So adverbs or other phrases may follow intransitive verbs to develop the ideas. Examples:
Sparky ran through the house.
I walked quickly to the store to avoid the rain.
Again, the underlined portions by themselves are complete sentences in the technical sense. So the elaboration is not a hard requirement, but it’s still nice to have, like spices in the writing recipe.
One more thing on intransitive verbs, many are typically concrete or tangible actions. As in, you can see/watch someone or something doing them, like walking, running, jumping, sitting, standing, crying, reading, or working. Verbs like these are also called dynamic, action, or event verbs.
Transitive- transitive verbs, on the other hand, are verbs that require an object to complete the thought. Examples:
I gave Sparky flea medication.
I made a tuna sandwich for lunch.
The subjects and verbs on their own do not make sense. “Give” and “made” imply either an object or recipient. So elaboration is required with transitive verbs, typically in the form of a noun, pronoun, or a noun clause or phrase. These would also be called direct or indirect objects if you were delving further into a study of sentence structure.
Stative- Stative verbs relate a state of being or mind. Examples:
Sparky loves wet food.
Linus believes in The Great Pumpkin. His sister, Lucy, hates it.
Linking- Linking verbs connect a subject and its details, typically through some form of “to be”. Linking verbs are a type of stative verb. Examples:
My husband is tired after work.
I am the shortest person in my family.
While the previous verbs are followed by objects or modifiers, linking verbs are followed by adjective or adjective phrases that describe the subject (or subject complements, if you’re getting technical.)
Helping or auxiliary- auxiliary verbs or helping verbs create verb phrases. They often “help” with emphasis or certain verb tenses. Examples:
We were planning a trip out west for our anniversary.
I am going to the store.
The bolded words make the subjects and verbs agree or make better sense. They also indicate the actions happening in a more elaborate sense of time. Planning for the trip was happening until a more recent point. The act of going to the store is either happening now or will be done in the near future.
With regard to emphasis, imagine the examples were in a dialogue of disagreement or disappointment. Where do you “hear” the emphasis? It tends to fall on the helping verbs to express a point in conversation or dramatic context.
Modal- modal verbs also create verb phrases, specifically to convey possibility, necessity, or permission. Examples:
We may order pizza this week.
We ought to go to bed earlier.
Modal verbs are always paired with infinitives, or the basic form of a verb.
Regular/irregular- regular and irregular verbs have rules similar to regular and irregular nouns. Regular verbs become past tense by only adding -d or -ed. Examples:
plant - planted
clean- cleaned
walk - walked
Irregular verbs change their spelling in different ways to become past tense. Examples:
run - ran
write - wrote
dive- dove
Those are just simpler tense changes, forms, or conjugates. Pair them with helping, linking, or modal verbs, the tense of time or emphasis becomes more involved, resulting in incidents like perfect or progressive tenses. Those can be explored on your own and in abother lesson.
How come these are important to know?
I may start sounding like a broken record on this matter if you’ve followed Lessons & Advice up to this point. If this is your first or if you don’t mind the repetition, Standard English makes knowing the verb types important to know. While subject-verb agreement is a big part of it, complete sentence structure and thoughts is another. Some verbs need objects or elaborative content in order to be fully understood. More still, verbs in particular contribute many unique nuances in the English language, like irregular verbs, infinitives, and tense changes. Knowing the correct forms, or much less words, can diminish confusion and errors in written work.
I hope this lesson helps you see verbs, sentence structure, and maybe even Standard English in a fresh light! A lot of the source material delves further into verbs and verb types, so I hope you'll check them out too!
If there's a topic you want me to cover in the future, you're welcome to reach out to me on the web chat feature or socials!
sources/further reading:
https://gato-docs.its.txst.edu/jcr:f65012ef-9608-4ee0-a0be-9559038bc97c/Verbs-Types%20and%20Tenses.pdf (downloadable resource)
"Schoolhouse Rock Grammar Rock: Verb: That's What's Happening" -episode from the vintage educational television series
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5zJWU8JavrgsDziKdkRecv?si=BjaxbmBlSlSTCPuKdebT_Q -Grammar Girl‘s insight into writing trademarks as verbs
Quotes from https://www.brainyquote.com/
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