Verbs and verb tenses - English Morpoholgy

Verbs and verb tenses - English Morpoholgy

- Do as pro-verb:
A transitive
Do functions as pro-verb substituting for some lexical verb, in one common pattern, do combines with a following pronoun it or this/that to form a transitive pro-verb construction:
I didn't do it.
We can't let you do that.

In some cases pro-verb do can substitute a specific lexical verb.

Copular verbs
• copula “be”
• sensory copular verbs
• resulting copular verbs

Sensory copular verbs

Look
Common adjectives: awful, different, happy, lovely, pale, sad, puzzled, small, surprised, terrible, tired, well, young
Do I look nice?
It looks nice, doesn't it?

Feel
Common adjectives: ashamed, bad, better, cold, good, guilty, sick, sure, tired, uncomfortable, uneasy
• Physical state of being:
I'll make you feel better.
My hands feel cold.
• Mental state of being:
I always feel guilty passing Mike's house.
He felt uneasy.

Sound
Awful, angry, sad and strange to report actual hearing perceptions while good, nice, silly, stupid and interesting are used in reaction to previous utterances.
• Hearing perceptions:
She doesn't sound angry anymore.
• Reaction to idea:
Oh how nice. That sounds good to me.

Smell
Reports the smells perceived by the speaker, using adjectives such as: awful, bad, funny, musty, odd, rotten, terrible, delicious, fresh, good, lovely, nice.
The food smelled good to her.
It smells funny in here.

Taste
The verb is restricted to occasional to occasional occurrences in conversation and fiction that report taste perceptions, using adjectives like awful, horrible, nice, wonderful.
They just taste awful.

Resulting copular verbs (= zmena stavu)

Become
- describes the process involved in changing from one state to another
The adjectives clear and apparent are most common, but also: aware, difficult, evident, important, possible, familiar, silent.
Raymond soon became aware that his strategy and hard work was paying dividends.

Get
- angry, bigger, better, bored, cold, dressed (up), drunk, lost, mad, mixed (up), old, older, pissed (off), sick, tired, upset, wet, worse, ready
And people get pissed off, don't they?
Go
- change towards some undesirable states
- crazy, mad, wrong, bad, cold, deaf, funny, limp, quiet, red, wild
Mama will go crazy.

Grow
- gradual evolution
- angry, big, bright, cold, dark, hot, large, old, pale, tall, tired, warm, weak, bigger, darker, larger, louder, older, shorter, smaller, stronger, warmer, weaker, worse
We should grow old here together.

Prove
- costly, decisive, difficult, fatal, necessary, popular, possible, successful, suitable, useful, wrong
- often used with non-personal subjects
Looking for tourist highlights in Montepulciano can prove difficult.

Come
- a change to a more favourable condition
- alive, awake, clean, loose, short, true, unstuck
It literally is a dream come true.

Turn
- a change in appearance especially a change in colour
- black, brown, (bright) red, white, pale
She had turned pale and her voice shook.

Turn out, End up, Wind up
- phrasal verbs used as resulting copular verbs

Structure and meaning distinctions in the verb phrase

The most fundamental distinction among English verb phrases is between the verb phrases (those with a finite verb) and non-finite phrases (those which contain only non-finite verb).
We shall concentrate on finite verb phrases, which in English vary respect to the following six major structural distinctions:
tense – present or past
aspect – unmarked/simple, perfect (has been), progressive (is seeing) or perfect progressive (has been seeing)
voice – active or passive
modality – unmarked, modal
negation – positive v. negative

The relationship between form and meaning is easy to see by contrasting verb tense and time meaning:

Present (habitual) time with present tense
He goes there a lot.

Past time with present tense (the historic present)
I wanted just a small box. He wasn't satisfied with it – He goes and makes a big one as well.

In terms of time, different forms can be used to express the same meaning. For example future time is express with a present tense verb or modal will + infinitive:

Future time with present tense
Goalkeeper Stephen Pears goes into hospital tomorrow for an operation on a cheekbone injury.

Future time with modal will
This part of the project will go ahead extremely rapidly.

Tense

Simple present tense referring to the present time
- to describe a state existing at the present time, and to describe present behaviour, to refer to habitual action:
I want a packet of crisps.
She's vegetarian but she eats chicken.