5 Things to Know About Irregular Verbs

1) There are less that 300 irregular verbs.

2) Most irregular verbs change the vowel of the base to make their past or -ed participle forms. This is called vowel gradation. For example:

meet-met / take-took / speak-spoken

3) The -ed ending is never used in a regular way with an irregular verb. It is often not used at all - won, met, cut, sat - An important pattern with some verbs is the use of a variant form, in which the 'd' sound of the ending changes to a 't'. For example:

burned - burnt / spilled - spilt / kneeled - knelt.

4) Burned is more common in American English than British English. The 'd' and 't' forms do not convey the same thing. The 'd' form emphasises the duration of an action - it burned for weeks. Whereas the 't' form would be more appropriately used when saying - ow, that burnt me.

5) There are seven classes of irregular verb:

a) There are about 20 verbs whose only irregular feature is the ending used for both past and -ed participle forms: have - had / send - sent / burn - burnt - burned.

b) There are about 10 verbs whose past tense is regular, but their -ed participle has an -n ending and a variant form in -ed: mow - mown - mowed / swell - swollen - swelled.

c) There are about 40 verbs that have the same ending for both the past and -ed participle forms, but they are irregular because the vowel of the base form changes: keep - kept / sleep - slept / teach - taught / sell - sold.

d) There are about 75 verbs that have an -n ending for the -ed participle form and an irregular past form. The vowel of the base also changes: blow - blew - blown / take - took - taken / see - saw - seen / undo - undid - undone.

e) There are about 40 verbs that have the same form throughout: cut / let / shut / broadcast / outbid.

f) There are about 70 verbs that have no ending for both past tense and the -ed participle. The vowel used in the base changes: spin - spun / mislead - misled / sit - sat / stand - stood.

g) There are about 25 verbs that have no ending, the past and -ed participle forms are different, and the vowels change with each form: swim - swam - swum / begin - began - begun / go - went - gone.

3 Things to Know About Regular Verbs

1) The forms of a regular verb can be predicted by rules. 

2) There are thousands of regular verbs.

3) Regular full verbs appear in four forms, each have a different role in the clause.

a) BASE FORM: A form with no endings. This is sometimes called the infinitive form - go / look / run / discover / remember.

b) -S FORM: These are made by adding an s ending to the base form - looks / cuts / runs / tries / passes / pushes.

c) -ING PARTICIPLE: These are made by adding ing to the base - visiting / begging / panicking / creating.

d) A form made by adding -ed: This ending is found in the past form and in the -ed participle form - passed / stopped / died / barred / rented / funded

 

Verbs

The verb has a central role in the clause and it is rare to omit it from a clause. 

The fish (subject) eats (verb) fish food (object) by the handful (adverbial).

We can remove the adverbial: The fish eats fish food.

The object: The fish eats by the handful.

The subject, in casual style: Eats fish food by the handful. (Pointing at the tank).

But we cannot omit the verb: The fish fish food by the handful. 

However, there are such things as 'verbless' clauses, which I will look at later on. 

Verb Element

Only one verb element is allowed per clause. Sometimes that will just be one verb:

John (subject) went (verb) home (adverbial).

Or multiple verbs working together to form one meaning:

John (subject) has gone (verb) home (adverbial).

Although 'has gone' is two verbs, they work together to express one thing, so they count as one verb element. 

Intransitive Verbs

These are verbs that can be written without an object:

The builder's going. 

Some common intransitive verbs are:

appear

die

digress

fall

go

happen 

lie

matter

rise

wait

Transitive Verbs

Verbs which require an object are traditionally known as transitive verbs. Enjoying is an example:

The builder's enjoying his lunch. 

Some common transitive verbs are:

bring

carry

desire

find

get

keep

like

make

need

use

Some verbs can be used intransitively or transitively. For example:

She's expecting a reply. She's expecting. 

He worked wonders. He worked.

As you can see from the example, what often happens is that the verb changes meaning when used in these different ways.