Verbs are action words. Verbs also describe abstract concepts. There are different modifications: mood and tenses among others. Let’s look at these first two closely in Grammar Lesson #3: Verbs.
Mood
A verb has five moods. They are: the infinite, indicative, subjunctive, potential, and the imperative.
- The infinite mood expresses the verb in an unlimited manner, without number or person.
- The indicative mood indicates or declares a thing, or asks a question.
- The subjunctive mood expresses the verb in a conditional, doubtful, or contingent manner.
- The potential mood expresses the verb as power, liberty, possibility or necessity.
- The imperative mood expresses the verb as commanding, exhorting, entreating or permitting.
Tenses
I think it’s no surprise that there are three tenses, past, present and future. We go into more detail here:
Present Tense
- Simple present tense expresses what now exists, what is normal, or correlated to the senses.
- Present continuous tense expresses what is temporary.
- Present perfect tense expresses what has taken place, within some period of time not yet fully past.
- Present perfect continuous tense expresses something that started in the past. But isn’t yet finished.
Past Tense
- Simple past tense expresses that which took place fully in the past.
- Past continuous tense expresses that which was taking place, then suddenly something else occurred.
- Past perfect tense expresses something that happened some time ago, when something else happened as well.
- Past perfect continuous tense expresses something that happened before and was still going on, when something else occurred.
Future Tense
- Simple future tense expresses something that will take place in the future.
- Future continuous tense expresses something that will be taking place at a certain time in the future.
- Future perfect tense expresses something that will have taken place at a certain time in the future.
- Future perfect continuous tense expresses something that will continue up until a certain point in the future, and then it will be finished.
So that is a lot of really heavy stuff. There’s actually a lot more to do with verbs. The thing to remember is that, you probably already know it. Learning about the things, and what they mean, is also good. Knowing why you feel a sentence is worded wrong is important. Thank you for reading my grammar lesson, verbs.
