Understanding Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, and Conjunctions

Posted on Apr 5, 2025 in Linguistics and Applied Languages

The Verb

Definition: From a semantic point of view, verbs constitute a class of words that indicate action, process, or state. From a syntactic point of view, verbs are the core of the verb phrase, which acts as the predicate of the sentence.

Verb Form

Verb form is the morphologically most complex word class, conveying diverse grammatical information. This requires it to take different forms for all these meanings. Verbs have different morphological features:

• Theme or Root: Expresses the semantic or conceptual content.
• Consists of the stem and the possible suffixes and prefixes added to it, and the voice call subject.
• Two different inflections and endings.

Periphrasis

Expresses grammatical meanings similar to appearance and mood of the verb (e.g., I am loving, I love).

Vowel

It has no distinctive meaning of the verb. It is possible to classify the verbs into 3 distinct groups or conjugations.

Variation of Number and Person

• Number: Expresses whether the verb form is singular or plural. Affects the noun classes of words.
• Person: Indicates if it is the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person.

Grammatical meanings of number and person are not linked to the verb. Verb forms that do not express number or person are nonpersonal forms: the infinitive (to love), gerunds (loving), participle (loved).

Mode

Reports on the attitude of the speaker before the action. It can be seen as real (indicative mood), as something virtual or potential (subjunctive mood), or as a command (imperative mood).

Regular Conjugation

Conjugation is the set of different forms a verb can adapt. It includes not only simple verb forms (ending theme +) but also composite forms (have + past participle). In conjugation, there are 3 models: 1st, 2nd, 3rd. They are distinguished by the vowel a, e, i. Its structure is: lex + (vowel) + ending time / mood / aspect + ending of number / person.

Verbal Phrases

Construction formed by a complementary verb that has been assimilated to the point that it is a unique expression (e.g., madden, give the note, kick back, miss).

Adverb

An adverb is a word class characterized morphologically by being unchanged, not admitting inflections.

Formation

Composition is formed by prepositions from: a-after in-after, to-low… by elimination of gender variance and number and composition by adding the word “mind.”

Function

Acts as a modifier of other elements, meaning nuances in different ways:

• When referring to a verb, it functions as a circumstantial complement.
• As modifiers of an adjective or an adverb, they are called quantifiers and indicate the intensity with which the same meaning is meant (e.g., something very, very).
• As sentence complements: modifiers (also, perhaps).

Adverbial Phrases

A set of words that works with the same value and function as an adverb (e.g., no doubt, sometimes, still).

Prepositions

Formally independent and invariant morphemes: they do not support inflections. They function as syntactic units subordinated to the term that is called the preposition.

Prepositional Phrases

When 2 or more words are grouped to constitute a unit equivalent to a grammaticalized preposition: next to, near, thanks to…

Conjunctions

Independent morphemes, gray, unchanged, and with no syntactic autonomy. They function as ties and coordination/subordination.

Nonpersonal Forms