Understanding Verb Functions, Forms, and Usage
The Verb: Core Function
The verb is the core of the verb phrase. Depending on the speaker, the predicate may be considered core, as the verb is always the core of the predicate or copula. It is the authentic core attribute predicate. Depending on the predicate’s core, it can be verbal or nominal. The verb always agrees in gender and number with the subject.
Verb Shape
- Lexeme and morpheme: “Ced-“
- Thematic vowel: “-ie-“
- Tense, mood, voice, and aspect: “-is-“
- Number and person: “-n”
Verbal Inflections
The conjugation thematic vowel indicates the verb’s conjugation. It is the vowel or diphthong that follows the root. In the 1st conjugation, it’s “a”; in the 2nd and 3rd conjugations, it can be “e”, “i”, or the diphthong “ie”.
Endings can be personal or non-personal. Personal endings indicate mode, tense, aspect, number, and person. Non-personal endings indicate whether the verb is an infinitive, a gerund, or a participle.
Morpheme in Number and Person
This morpheme is unique to personal forms. It indicates the grammatical person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) and number (singular or plural). For example, there would be no “-s” in the 2nd person singular in the present tense, or “-is” in the 2nd person plural in the imperative mood.
Morpheme of Tense, Mood, and Aspect
This is the segment remaining after isolating the root, stem vowel, and morpheme of number and person. If no segment remains, this morpheme is ΓΈ.
Significance
There is a difference between linking verbs and predicates, and within the latter, between transitive and intransitive verbs.
Non-personal verb forms (infinitive, gerund, and participle) can function as verbs with their complements or as another part of speech.
- The infinitive as a noun.
- The gerund as an adverb modifying the verb.
- The participle as an adjective.
Uses in Verbal Discourse
Verbal Periphrasis
A verbal periphrasis is a construction formed by a conjugated verb and another verb in a non-finite form, which is the main verb. The auxiliary verb indicates manner, tense, aspect, number, and person, while the main verb contributes the lexical meaning.
Features
The two verbs, auxiliary and main, form a syntactic and semantic unit. The auxiliary verb is wholly or partly grammaticalized, meaning it has lost all or part of its original meaning. For example, in “the girl began to mourn,” the meaning of “began” is not the same as in “the girl lay in bed.”
Non-personal forms have a dual grammatical nature: the infinitive is both noun and verb, the gerund is verb and adverb, and the participle is verb and adjective. However, in verbal periphrasis, they lose one of their values (nominal, adverbial, or adjectival) and retain only their verbal character.
Example
Infinitive periphrasis: these constructions allow the infinitive’s nominalization, i.e., its replacement by a pronoun or a nominal category. “The students tried to delay the examination” can be substituted with “The students sought to delay the examination.” Therefore, the construction “sought to delay” is not a verbal periphrasis.
Infinitive periphrasis allows the placement of unstressed pronouns before or after the periphrasis, as they affect both verb forms. For example, “Margaret, I’ll tell you a story” can be said as “Margaret, I’ll tell you a story.” In this case, the unstressed pronoun can stand before or after the periphrasis, forming a syntactic unit.