Grammar I Graciela Palacio

LV/UB 2012

LESSON 18
MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF VERBS

In the previous lessons, we dealt with the syntactic classification of verbs. We said that verbs
can be classified from a syntactic point of view into:

1) Intransitive verbs of complete predication, e.g.: John laughed.

2) Intransitive verbs of incomplete predication, e.g.: John is at home.
3) Monotransitive verbs of complete predication, e.g.: John ate an apple.
4) Bitransitive verbs of complete predication, e.g.: John gave Mary a book.
5) Complex Transitive verbs1, e.g.: John put the book on the table.

We call this a syntactic classification because it has to do with the elements that combine
with the verb horizontally to form the sentence.

From a morphological point of view, verbs can be classified into regular or irregular:

1) Regular verbs are those that form their past and past participle2 by the addition of -ed,
e.g.: look, clean, open, etc. If we know the base form (i.e. the dictionary entry form) we can
predict all its other forms by rule.

2) Irregular verbs are those whose past and past participle form cannot be predicted by
general rule from the base, e.g.: break, broke, broken, etc.

From a morphological point of view, verbs can also be classified into finite or non-finite.
Finite means conjugated, non-finite means not conjugated:

1) Finite (i.e. conjugated):

The door is open. (simple present)

John came yesterday. (simple past)

2) Non-finite (i.e. not conjugated). The non-finite forms of the verb are:

(a) the infinitive, e.g.: To see her is to love her.

(b) the gerund, e.g.: I love riding.
(c) the present participle, e.g.: I was reading.
(d) the past participle, e.g.: I've broken my leg.

This is just a brief introduction to the subject. We will go back to these notions in greater
detail later.

LEXICAL VERBS VS. FUNCTIONAL VERBS (= AUXILIARY VERBS)

1. Lexical verbs have semantic content.
2. They assign theta-roles.
1
For some people Transitive Verbs of Incomplete Predication
2
Remember we have made a distinction between the passive participle and the perfect participle.

Page 1 of 7/Lesson 18
 3. They take arguments.

1. Auxiliary verbs are functional categories

2. They constitute closed lexical classes, closed sets, i.e. they can be listed.
3. They express grammatical notions such as tense, aspect, voice, modality.
4. They do not have theta-grids and they do not assign semantic roles as lexical verbs do.
5. They do not take arguments.
6. They have what Huddleston (1976b: 333) refers to as the ‘NICE properties’: the N
stands for negation, the I for inversion, the C for code and the E for emphatic
affirmation:

1. Negation: they can be joined to the contracted form of not, e.g.: won´t, couldn´t, etc.
2. Inversion: they are placed before the subject in the following cases:
a) To form the interrogative, e.g.: Can he swim?
b) After a front position negative or semi-negative expression, e.g.: Hardly had we
started when it began to rain.
c) In tag questions, e.g.: He came yesterday, didn´t he?
3. Code: they can be used as ‘code verbs’, in short answers to questions, to avoid
repetition, e. g.: Did you find it? Yes, I did.
4. Emphatic affirmation: He did break it.

Which are the auxiliary verbs?

1. Do/does: auxiliaries to form the negative, interrogative and emphatic affirmative of the
simple present tense, e.g.:

I don’t like him. (auxiliary for the negative)

Do you like him? (auxiliary for the interrogative)
I do like him. (auxiliary for the emphatic affirmative)
I like him. (no auxiliary is used in a declarative affirmative sentence)

(cf. Do as an auxiliary verb must be distinguished from do as main verb (in Spanish, hacer).
According to Quirk et al (1985) do as main verb can act as a pro-predication (or pro-
predicator for us) referring to some unspecified action or actions:

A: I’m throwing these books away.

B: Why are you doing that?

2. Did: auxiliary to form the negative, interrogative and emphatic affirmative of the simple
past, e.g.:

I didn’t go to the cinema yesterday. (auxiliary for the negative)

Did you go to the cinema yesterday? (auxiliary for the interrogative)
I did go to the cinema yesterday. (auxiliary for the emphatic affirmative)
I went to the cinema yesterday. (no auxiliary is used in a declarative affirmative
sentence)

3. Have/has/had: auxiliaries for the perfect. The perfect is a form that expresses the notion
of anteriority. The action has or has not occurred before speech time, i.e. the moment when
the utterance is made. They are followed by a perfect participle, e.g.:

Page 2 of 7/Lesson 18
 I have broken my leg.
Have you done your homework?
I haven’t been to London yet.

4. Be (+ ing): auxiliary for the imperfective aspect. There are two varieties of imperfective
aspect: progressive and resultative. The progressive helps us to focus on the intermediate
stages of a durative event or on the preliminary stages of a non-durative verb. In the first case
it denotes an action in progress. In the second case, the approach to a transition or change of
state. The resultative expresses a result, e.g.:

1. She is making a cake. (imperfective aspect: progressive)

2. The man was dying. (imperfective aspect: progressive)
3. The picture is hanging on the wall. (imperfective aspect: resultative)

5. Be/get3 (+ en): auxiliaries for the passive voice.

He was given a new watch.

He got caught (by the police).

The passive auxiliaries are followed by a passive participle.

6. Can/could; may/might; will/would; shall/should; must; have to; ought to; needn't;
dare; be + to infinitive; the going to form: modal auxiliaries, which express volition or
cognition.

The lights are not on. He must be out. (deduction or confident conclusion: speaker’s
cognition)
You must see a doctor. (urgency: speaker’s volition)
That will be the postman. (a confident statement: speaker’s cognition)
He will drink whisky in spite of what the doctor told him. (volition on the part of the
grammatical subject he, annoyance on the part of the speaker)

THE VERB BE
The verb be may function as:

a) a main verb or
b) as an auxiliary verb

a) When it is main verb, it is always an intransitive verb of incomplete predication and it

is followed by a predicative complement or an adverbial complement, e.g.:

1. Ann is tall. (tall: predicative complement)

2. Ann is in the garden. (in the garden: adverbial complement)

b) When it is an auxiliary verb, there are three possibilities:

3
Get as an auxiliary for the passive is used for things that are done suddenly, unexpectedly, or by
accident, e.g.: My brother got hit by a cricket ball. More and more people are getting attacked in the
underground these days.*Parliament got opened by the Queen last week.*Our house got built in
1827.

Page 3 of 7/Lesson 18
1) It may be an auxiliary for the imperfective aspect (traditionally called: present or past
continuous), in which case it is followed by a present participle (an -ing form of the verb, a
non-finite or non-conjugated form of the verb), e.g.:

The children are playing.

2) It may be an auxiliary for the passive voice, in which case it is followed by a passive
participle (another non-finite or non-conjugated form of the verb which is conventionally
represented by means of -en), e.g.:

My watch was made in Japan.

3) It may be a modal auxiliary, expressing either (1) obligation, an arrangement that is the
result of a command or request made by a third person, an arrangement made as the result of
orders (e.g. He is to leave at eight o'clock this evening) or (2) plan or arrangement4 (e.g. We
are to be married in June). In this case the verb be is followed by a full infinitive (i.e. an
infinitive preceded by to).

To sum up:

The verb be:

a) Main verb: IVIP + PC or Adv C.
b) Auxiliary verb:
1) be + ing: auxiliary for the imperfective aspect.
2) be + en: auxiliary for the passive voice.
3) be + to-infinitive: modal auxiliary.

In order to decide which type of auxiliary it is in a given sentence, you should always pay
attention to the form of the verb that follows be. Consider the following sentence which
contains two occurrences of the verb be:

The house was being redecorated at that moment.

The first occurrence of be (was) is followed by an -ing form (being, a present participle) so it
is an auxiliary for the progressive aspect. The second occurrence of be (being) is followed by
an -en form (redecorated, a passive participle) so the second be is an auxiliary for the passive
voice. Redecorated is the main verb.

Consider now the following sentences:

1) The house is being redecorated. (present time reference)

2) The house was being redecorated. (past time reference)

In every Tense phrase there is always only one finite element, the first one (is and was).
The finite element indicates whether the tense is past or non-past (or past or present). All the
other elements (being and redecorated in this case) are non-finite. Notice that their form

4
Sometimes the reference is not to planned arrangements, but to "destiny" - things which are hidden
in the future, "written in the stars", e.g.: When we said goodbye, I thought it was forever. But we were
to meet again, many years later, under very strange circumstances.

Page 4 of 7/Lesson 18
doesn't change. The fact that there can only be one finite element can be clearly seen in the
tree, the finite element being in the T (Tense) head.

Notice too that T (Tense), the head of the TP, has an Auxiliary Phrase as complement. The
head of this Auxiliary Phrase is the auxiliary for the perfect have. The head of the first
Auxiliary Phrase, the auxiliary have, in turn has a complement, the second Auxiliary Phrase
for the Imperfective Aspect. The head of the second auxiliary phrase been also has a
complement, the VP. What we have is a succession of heads and complements. How will this
be represented in the analysis?

As ususal, we start with the:

1. Syntactic Representation of the sentence as a CP:

Ø He must have been carrying a gun.

Head (Complementiser) Complement (Tense Phrase)

Remember that Head and Complement are functions, complementiser and tense phrase are
categories.

Once we have represented the sentence as a CP, we can concentrate on the TP He must have
been carrying a gun.

Now if you look at the tree you will notice that this TP is made up of two elements, the D
(determiner) He and a T’ (T-bar) (must have been he carrying a gun). For pedagogical
reasons, we will ignore the movement of the subject he out of the VP.

Page 5 of 7/Lesson 18
We will analyse He as the subject and the rest (must have been carrying a gun) as the
predicate. Subject and Predicate are functions. The subject is a D and the predicate is a T’ (T-
bar). D (determiner) and T’ (T-bar) are categories. The next step is:

2. Syntactic analysis of the TP:

Subject (D) Predicate (T’)

He must have been carrying a gun.

Now if you go back to the tree you will notice that the head of the TP is T (tense). The
position is occupied by the modal auxiliary must. Must is the element that carries the tense,
the finite element. Notice that in every sentence there can only be one finite element
because there is only one Tense head.

So if we now concentrate on the analysis of must have been carrying a gun, we can say that
must functions as the head of the TP, and that have been carring a gun is the complement, an
Auxiliary phrase (Aux P):

Subject (D) Predicate (T’)

He must have been carrying a gun.
Head (T) Complement (Aux P)

Notice that must is the head of the TP, not the head of T’. What we have done is the syntactic
analysis of the TP.

The next step is to analyse the Auxiliary Phrase have been carrying a gun. The head is the
Auxiliary for the Perfect have, the rest of the phrase is the complement.

have been carrying a gun.

Head (Aux for the Perfect) Complement (Aux P)

Then we analyse the second Auxiliary Phrase been carrying a gun. The head of this Aux P is
been and the complement the VP carrying a gun.

been carrying a gun.

Head (Aux for the Imperfective aspect) Complement (VP)

The next and final step is the analysis of the VP carrying a gun:

carrying a gun.
Head (V/ TVCP) Complement (DP)

Notice that the process is repetitive. This repetitive process is technically called recursion.
Recursion is a key feature of language.
MIDDLE VERBS
Middle verbs are transitive verbs that cannot be turned into the passive voice, e.g.:

Page 6 of 7/Lesson 18
 John resembles his father.
He has a green car. (possession)
That dress fits (suits) you very well.
He lacks confidence.
The auditorium holds 5,000 people.
That dress becomes you.
Tom married Mary.

Notice that marry is a middle verb in the sense "enter into a marriage". Marry in the sense
"perform the marriage ceremony for" is not a middle verb, but a transitive verb occurring in
the passive:

Ron and Joan were married by Father Brown.

The verb have is a middle verb only when it expresses possession. It is not a middle verb in:

A good time was had by all.

What is there to be had? (= to be eaten)

Lesson 18 Activity 1: (to be discussed in class)

Analyse the following sentences integrating the material discussed in this lesson:
1. He must have been being beaten.
2. The plane will have landed by then.
3. You are to knock before you enter.

Lesson 18 Activity 2: (to be handed in as Assignment 18)

1. You have ruined my dress!
2. The astronauts will be sleeping at 4.00 a.m.
3. The house is being painted at the moment.

REFERENCES:
Huddleston, R. D. (1976b) ‘Some theoretical issues in the description of the English verb’,
Lingua 40, 331-383.
Palmer, F. R. (1979) Modality and the English Modals, Longman.

Page 7 of 7/Lesson 18