VERBS- THEIR SIGNIFICANCE AND THEIR USAGE.

VERBS- THEIR SIGNIFICANCE AND THEIR USAGE. (A note from the MFL department)


A verb can be described as a word belonging to that part of speech that characteristically is the grammatical centre of a sentence and expresses an act, occurrence or state of being. In various languages it is inflected depending on the person, the number of people, the tense or the mood.

The tense is that part of speech that distinguishes whether a verb is expressed in the past, present or future.

There are a number of tenses expressed in every language and each language has its own particular way of doing so. In English we use a number of methods.

1. By adding an auxiliary such as ‘will’, ‘would’, ‘’ll’, ‘shall’ before a verb;
2. By adding a suffix such as ‘-s’, ‘-es’, ‘-ed’, ‘-ing’, to the end of a verb;
3. By changing the spelling for example, see (saw), go (went), am (was).

The main tenses in English are

1. The Infinitive. Eg. To g...