Verb Phrase

Verb Phrase

Verb Phrase is the phrase that the head is the main verb.

The verb phrase may be preceded by up to four auxiliaries.

The auxiliaries fall into two major sets:

1. The primary auxiliaries  (is, am are, was were), (has, have),
(do, does)
2. The modals  can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would,
must  always followed by infinitive/verb base
 Verb Phrase

The auxiliaries appear in a set sequence:

Modal – Perfect have– progressive be—passive be—main verb

Should have been being played

They would have been making judgements about their children

behaviour

I have been working here for six years

 The Functions of auxiliaries

 The major function of auxiliaries are as an operator

The operator is used for:

1. Negation to form negative sentence by adding not after the aux
iliaries  It was not pasteurised milk. It is not mine.
2. Interrogation to form an interrogative sentence you can reme
mber  can you remember?
3. Emphasis to convey emphasis  I do love you
4. Abbreviation  I wouldn’t go there
 Finite and Non-Finite Verb Phrase
Finite Verb Phrase Non-Finite Verb Phrase
: it is called finite if it displays tense that : it functions within a finite verb
can make distinction between present
and past
1. He stops his car in the intersection I am starting  starting  progressive
2. He dropped his key in the garden Can start  start  infinitive
last night
The finite verb phrase can contain
more that one verb, but only the first
verb in the verb phrase is finite.
Have stopped  Have is finite and
stopped is non-finite
Big brown bears thunder through the deep
woods, closing in on a
remote site where campers wait, ready to kill
them
 Tense
 Tense is grammatical category referring to the location of a situation in time.

 Srictly speaking, English has only two tense of the verbs  Present and Past 
shown by a verb inflection

 We use auxiliary verbs in combination with main verbs to refer to time

 Time is also conveyed with the helps of adverbs (nowadays, tomorrow, yesterday)

 Time is also conveyed with the helps of noun phrase (last week, this morning)

 Time is also conveyed with the helps of clauses (when we saw them, after the
conflict is over)
 Aspect
 The aspect of the verb refers primarily to the way that the time of the situation is regarded
rather than its location in time in absolute terms.

 English has two aspects of the verbs  the perfect and progressive

 The aspects are expressed by a combination of an auxiliary and following verbs

 Perfect aspect  have/has + V3 (present); had + V3 (Past)

 Perfect aspect is primarily used to place the time of one situation relative to the time of
another situation

 Progressive aspect  to be + Ving  is am are + Ving (Present) ; was were + Ving (Past)
 Tense and Aspect

1Tense
Aspect

2
Present Past Perfect Progressive

Signalled by inflection – Signalled by inflection

s/-es for the third person –d/-ed for regular verbs
singular and verb base 4 and irregular verbs
 Verb Phrase (VP)

1V NP PP AdvP

2
Transitive Intransitive Di-transitive

4
Tense Present (Pres)

The girl likes the cat

1
S

VP
NP 2
VP
NP
Det N Aux 3 V
Tense det N

The girl Pres

4 likes the cat
Tense Past (Past)

The girl hugged the baby

1
S

VP
NP 2
VP
NP
Det N Aux 3
V
det N
Tense
The girl Past
4 hugged the baby
Tense Modal (Mod)

The girl will hug the baby

1
S

VP
NP 2
VP
NP
Det N Aux 3 V det N
Mod
The girl 4 hug the baby
will
 Tense Perfect (Perf)

The girl has finished this book

1
S

VP
NP 2
VP
NP
Det N Aux 3 V det N
Tense Perf

The girl pres has

4 finished this book
 Tense Progressive (Prog)

The girl is reading the book

1
S

VP
NP 2
VP
NP
Det N Aux 3 V det N
Tense Prog

The girl (pres) is

4 reading the book