In
syntax, a
verb is a
word (
part of speech) that usually denotes an action (
bring,
read), an occurrence (
decompose,
glitter), or a state of being (
exist,
stand). Depending on the
language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its
tense,
aspect,
mood and
voice. It may also agree with the
person,
gender, and/or
number of some of its arguments (
subject,
object, etc.).
Valency
The number of arguments that a verb takes is called its
valency or
valence. Verbs can be classified according to their valency:
- Transitive (valency = 2): the verb has a subject and a direct object. For example: "she eats fish", "we hunt nothing".
In English, it is impossible to have verbs with zero valency. Weather verbs are often
impersonal (subjectless) in
null-subject languages like
Spanish, where the verb
llueve means "It rains". In English, they require a
dummy pronoun, and therefore formally have a valency of 1.
The intransitive and transitive are typical, but the impersonal and objective are somewhat different from the norm. In this sense you can see that a verb is a person, place, thing, or link. In the objective the verb takes an object but no subject, the nonreferent subject in some uses may be marked in the verb by an incorporated dummy pronoun similar to the English whether verb (see below). Impersonal verbs take neither subject nor object, as with other null subject languages, but again the verb may show incorporated dummy pronouns despite the lack of subject and object phrases. Tlingit lacks a ditransitive, so the indirect object is described by a separate, extraposed clause.
English verbs are often flexible with regard to valency. A transitive verb can often drop its object and become intransitive; or an intransitive verb can take an object and become transitive.
In the first example, the verb
move has no grammatical object. (In this case, there may be an object understood – the subject (I/myself). The verb is then possibly reflexive, rather than intransitive); in the second the subject and object are distinct. The verb has a different valency, but the form remains exactly the same.
In many languages other than English, such valency changes are not possible like this; the verb must instead be inflected in order to change the valency.
Verbal noun and verbal adjective
Most languages have a number of
verbal nouns that describe the action of the verb. In
Indo-European languages, there are several kinds of verbal nouns, including
gerunds,
infinitives, and
supines. English has gerunds, such as
seeing, and infinitives such as
to see; they both can function as nouns;
seeing is believing is roughly equivalent in meaning with
to see is to believe. These terms are sometimes applied to verbal nouns of non-Indo-European languages.
In the Indo-European languages, verbal adjectives are generally called
participles. English has an
active participle, also called a present participle; and a
passive participle, also called a past participle. The active participle of
play is
playing, and the passive participle is
played. The active participle describes
nouns that perform the action given in the verb, e.g.
I saw the playing children.. The passive participle describes nouns that have been the object of the action of the verb, e.g.
I saw the played game scattered across the floor.Other languages have
attributive verb forms with tense and aspect. This is especially common among
verb-final languages, where attributive verb phrases act as
relative clauses.
Agreement
In languages where the verb is inflected, it often agrees with its primary argument (what we tend to call the subject) in person, number and/or gender. English only shows distinctive agreement in the third person singular, present tense form of verbs (which is marked by adding "-s"); the rest of the persons are not distinguished in the verb. The contraction "there's," specifically referring to use with plural nouns, is a disputed, yet technically correct usage.
Spanish and other
Romance languages inflect verbs for tense/mood/aspect and they agree in person and number (but not in gender, as for example in
Polish) with the subject.
Japanese, in turn, inflects verbs for many more categories, but shows absolutely no agreement with the subject.
Basque,
Georgian, and some other languages, have
polypersonal agreement: the verb agrees with the subject, the direct object and even the secondary object if present.
See also
Types of verbs
Verbs in different languages
Grammar
Other
