Verbs and Verb Phrases
When I was young, teachers said, “Verbs are action words.” Like other antediluvian definitions, this one
needs to be hoisted out of the stone ages and made more modern as well. Why? Some verbs do NOT
denote action.
Below is the basic 4-1-1 on verbs; this is by far not Albus Dumbledore’s Complete Grimoire of Verb Lore,
but it is enough.
For our purposes, there are two types of verbs: action and linking. Either can have helping verbs.
Regardless of the type, all verbs relate to the subject of the clauses they belongs to.
Every clause—dependent or independent—has at least one verb and at least one subject, or else it
isn’t a clause (an independent clause is more widely known as a SENTENCE).
A subject is the noun the clause is about. In other words, the subject is the who or what that the verb
relates to.
When one starts locating subjects and verbs, one will become a stronger, more cognizant writer because
one will be more conscious of what a clause looks like, thus making one less prone to making elementary
mistakes—run-on (or fused) sentences, sentence fragments, and the ever popular comma splice. In
the examples below, the verbs are in bold.
Action verbs denote an action that the subject of the sentence is performing (present tense), was
performing (past tense), or will be performing (future tense). What noun does each verb refer to?
1) Bob runs / is running home.
2) Joan slapped the scary clown.
3) Our class will rip through the test.
Verb of Christmas present 
Verb of Christmas past 
Verb of Christmas future 
Linking verbs do three things; action is not one of them (tense applies here as well).
1) Conveys a state of being (the eight forms of “Be”: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been).
John is / was / will be hungry.
2) Relates sensory information about the subject
The pie tastes / tasted / will taste good.
1) Links a subject to an adjective or noun that describes it (called a compliment).
John remains / remained / will remain silent.
Helping verbs can accompany almost any verb, usually to help achieve a certain tense, such as future
tense (will be going) or one of the tenses you don’t need to know about. These auxiliary verbs combine
with main verbs to form verb phrases. In the sentences below, the verb phrases are underlined. Note
that some verb phrases can have many words!
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Doug should have been willing to help out at prom. He could have been persuaded.
Sandy could have helped too.
Phil is going to prom with Betty, and I am going with Fanny.
They will have cake and punch at prom; I have been known to eat tons of cake.
Bob is driving away because he forgot to pick up his date. All of a sudden, Bob’s low grades
are starting to make sense (true story, except his name wasn’t Bob…).
Familiarize yourself with how verb phrases look; they are all very similar. Words like has and have and
the eight ‘forms of be’—these are in lots of verb phrases. When you see them, you might—though not
always—have a verb phrase in the sentence.
One final thing about verb phrases—they aren’t always side by side. One often finds these types of
constructions in questions.
Study the first sentence, and then find the subject and verb or verb phrase in the remaining ones.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Do horses have sharp teeth or dull teeth?
Can Shelly help me with my homework?
Should I go with Shelly to the store?
Will the rain spoil our fun tonight?
(Horses do have sharp or dull teeth)
Practice!
Examine the sentences below and do the following:
a) Write down the subjects and verbs or verb phrases in each sentence
b) Write down the verb tense—past, present, future
Read carefully: compound and complex sentence structures can have more than one subject or verb. The
rule says a sentence or clause must have at least one of each. “At least” means there can be more than one in each
construction (this especially applies to dependent clauses, which are constructions with a subject and verb that are
part of the main clause (a fancy word for sentence) but cannot exist as an independent sentence).
1) Bert eats eggs before each game because he thinks that eggs bring him luck.
2) In last night’s game, Bert rampaged through the defensive line and slammed head-first into
the end zone to score the winning touchdown.
3) The crowd wheezed in horror when Bert failed to get up immediately.
4) His mother rushed onto the field to check on her injured son.
5) Bert yelled, “Ma, please! I have a rep to protect! The fellas’ will kill me!”
6) Though his words upset his mother, he was sure she would recover eventually.
7) Looking back, Bert realized he could have been severely injured, so he asked his mother to
forgive him for shouting.
8) Bert’s friends, however, are another story.
9) They hounded Bert for weeks! They laughed at him because his “mommy” ran to save him.
10) Bert learned to take it in stride; he realized it was all in good fun. Later that night, he cooked
dinner for his mother.