English Language Week 4: Verbs and Their Functions, Slide di Lingua Inglese

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Lingua inglese week 4

1 more Lesson with language teacher for final task

VERBS

• Verbs provide the focal point of the clause
• The main verb determines the other clause elements and specifies a mening relation among those elements
• Verb functions and classes

3 major classes

• Lexical verbs function as main verbs (run, eat, think)
• Primary verbs (be, have, do) function both as auxiliary and main verbs
• Modal verbs (can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must) function as auxiliary verbs
• Lexical verbs are more common and used in conversation and fiction

Semantic categories of lexical verbs

• Activity verbs
• Communication verbs
• Mental verbs
• Causative verbs
• Verbs of occurrence
• Verbs of existence or relationship
• Verbs of aspect

Communication verbs

• Involve communication activities, particularly describing speech and writing
• You said you didn’t have it
• They asked me if I wanted to see how the money was spent
• Ask, call, claim, describe, offer, say, speak, suggest, talk, tell, thank, write

Mental verbs

• Refer to mental states and activities (not physical action but emotions and attitudes, perceptions, receiving communication)
• I think it was Freddie
• I wanted very much to give him my book
• Think, know, love, want, see, taste, read, hear

Causative verbs

• Indicate that some person or thing helps to bring about a new state of affairs
• The information enables the formulation of precise questions
• What caused you to be ill?
• This would help protect that species
• Allow, help, let, require, cause, force

Verbs of occurrence

• Report events that occur without an actor
• The light changed
• The term ‘features’ occurs many times in this chapter
• Become, change, develop, die, grow, happen, occur

Verbs of aspect

• Characterize the stage of progress of an event or activity.
• She kept running out of the room
• Tears started to trickle down his cheeks
• Begin, continue, keep, start, stop

Verbs with multiple meanings

• Convey two or more semantic categories simultaneously
• Many patients are quite fit when admitted to the surgical ward (physical meaning)
• I must admit it gave me a bit of a shock (mental meaning)

get

• Common in conversation
• Obtaining something: see if they can get some of that beer
• Moving to or away from something (activity): get in the car
• Causing something to move (causative): we ought to get these wedding pictures into an album of some sort
• Causing something to happen (causative): it gets people talking again
• Changing from one state to another (occurrence): she’s getting ever so sad now

• Understanding something (mental): do you get it?
• Get in the perfect form:
• It’s got little to do with it

• give (with activity meanings):
• She was too shy to give him more than a covert glance

Repeated use of common verbs

• She and Cathy might like to come because she did say to me, how is Cathy and I said she was…..
• She knows about Cathy’s problem?
• Yes, she said , do you think Cathy would mind if I rang her? And I said no, I’m sure she wouldn’t