Colegio De Dagupan

Institute of Graduate Studies

Master in Education
Major in English Language Teaching

Course Title: (Med 004) Grammatical Structure of English

Introduction:
In communicating through the use of the English language, ideas, thoughts,
concepts, feelings, emotions and a lot more are expressed by means of words. These
words are considered as the smallest elemnts in a sentence that have distinctive
meanings. Based on their use and functions, words are categorized into several types
which we call “ parts of speech,”
As mentioned above, the topic that I am about to discuss is all about VERBS as it
is one of the parts of the speech that plays a vital role in learning grammar. As Charlotte
Perkins Gilman said, “ Life is a verb, not a noun.”
Verb is the most important part of speech, for without a verb, a sentence would
not have life or would have any meaning or significance at all. Simply put, this is a word
that shows an action (physical or mental) or the state of being of the subject in the
sentence.

Body:
The most important part of speech that needs considerable attention for a certain
study will be the different verbs known as “ action words” which are used to connect or
link a word in the predicate to the subject so as to:
 to show a condition;
 to show a state of being; and;
 to help other verbs
Without verbs,a sentence will not have a life and motion and it may be difficult to
understand the actual meaning of a sentence. Also, you need to remember that every
subject must have a verb.
Let us start anew with the discussion of a subject and a predicate which are the
essential components in constructing sentences.
These two parts in a sentence have connection or relation to each other. Every
complete sentence contains two parts: a subject and a predicate. The subject is what or
whom the sentence is about, while the predicate tells something about the subject.
Consider this statement:
S P
The girl is going to school.

To determine who the subject of a sentence is, first find the verb and then ask
“who” or “what?’. In the sentence, the verbs are “ is going.” If we ask, “who is going to
school?”, the answer is, “the girl”. This is how we come to know that the “girl” is the
subject of the sentence.
 As mentioned earlier, verbs are action wors that are used to connect or link a
word in the predicate to the subject as to:
1. to show a condition which means that verbs describe the characteristics of the
subject.
Examples: I am a vendor.
You are happy.
Note:” Be-verb” such as am, is, are
2. to show a state of being which means that verbs indicate the existence or
describe the subject in time and location.
Examples: I have a visitor now.
It has beautiful colors.
Note: Use of the “have-verb”; has for singular subject; have for plural subject.
3. to help other verbs (helping or auxiliary verbs) assist the main verb which
means that for this one, there are two verbs- one is called the “main verb” and
the other is called the “helping verb.”
Examples of helping or auxiliary verbs that are commonly used:
a. “ to be”
b. “to have” They are “ helping verbs” because
they help the main verb
c. “to do”
Example:
HV MV
I am working today.
In the example given, you may ask which one is the main verb and which
one is the helping verb? The main or principal verb is “working” and the helping
verb is “am”. Without the helping verb “am”, we could not make a sentence by
saying: “I working today” which is incorrect.

There are two types of helping verbs in the English language and they are:
 Auxiliary verbs;and
 Modal verbs
1. Auxiliary verbs are called as helping verbs that add meaning to the clause where
they are being used and they are needed either to express a tense or to add
emphasis. The three common auxiliary verbs have the following forms:
Present:
“to be” “to have” “to do”
-am -has -do
-is -have -does
-are
Past
-was -had -did
-were
-be
-been

2. Helping verbs that perform other specific tasks to further modify the action are
called “modal verbs”. These verbs do not change their form at all and they
remain as is:
Modals
Obligation Necessity Possibility
Will Shall can
would should Could
 must Ought to Might/may
At this part, let’s take a closer look at the linking verbs. These verbs do not show
any action at all. They merely connect the subject of the verb to show more information
about that sunject. It usually connects the subject with an adjective or a noun that
describes it.
Linking verbs have the following functions:
1. To connect the subject with an adjective.
Example: LV
Purita is kind.
2. To connect the subject with a noun.
Example: LV
Papayas and mangoes are fruits.
To further understand verbs, there are three basic tenses of verbs which tell you
when the action happens. -the present, the past and the future tense.
1.Present tense is an action that is happening right now or is happening regularly.
2.Past tense is an action that happened in the past and completed in the past.
3. Future tense is an action that has not yet happened or a state that does not yet exist.

Verbs may be regular or irregular type of verb. A regular verb is a term used to
refer to a verb that form its past tense by the addition of -ed, -d, -ied. Or -t sound to the
base form. It has the same form both for past tense and past participle.
1. Adding -d
Base form Simple present Simple past Past participle
analyze analyzes analyzed analyzed

2. Adding -ed
Base form Simple present Simple past Past participle
enter enters entered entered

3. Change the d to -t
Base form Simple present Simple past Past participle
build builds built Built

4. Change the y to I, then add -ed

On the other hand, irregular verbs are verbs that form their past tense and their
past participle in several ways. Although it is impossible to establish rule for these
changes, a group of these words often fall into a special pattern.
1. Vowel change in the past tense.
Base form Simple present Simple past Past participle
come comes came come
2. Some verbs in the group in addition to the vowel change, add n to the past
participle.
Base form Simple present Simple past Past participle
break breaks broke broken
3. Another group changes its form completely in the past tense and past participle.
Base form Simple present Simple past Past participle
go goes went gone
4. A few verbs change the last consonant, but not the vowel.
 Base form Simple present Simple past Past participle
spend spends spent spent
5. A few others have the same form for all the three principal parts.
Base form Simple present Simple past Past participle
cut cuts cut cut

The past tense and past participle are different from each other. Past tense
refers to the tense that we use to express an action in the past while past participle is a
form of the verb but not a tense. It cannot be used alone as a ver since the past
participle form usually requires an auxiliary verb such as has, have, etc.
Example: HV PP
I have gone to the market this morning.

In the exampl given, take note that the past participle of the verb is always
accompanied by a helping verb or auxiliary verb and this means that a past participle
cannot in any way be used alone as a verb. Remember that a past participle is just a
form of the verb and not a tense.

Conclusion:
With all the information given, these are just some of the glimpse of verbs that
the learners of today should be reminded upon. Knowing these basics of grammar
would be a helpful way to expound their skills in learning English language.However, in
order to help our students uderstand more about this, we, teachers, should teach it
simply and rightly by beginning with the basics, then try to develop the learners’
mastery of the required competencies before proceeding to the more difficult situations.
As teachers, we should re-orient every learner that learning English is not difficult
at all and that learning the fundamental rules first would be the key to mastery learning,
student motivation and achievement.