Tablas de evidencia ensayos clínicos aleatorizados

Verbs are an open word class (see B1). In terms of grammar (rather than lexis) they are the most important word class because they are the central element in clauses (see A7); each full clause must have a verb, and they determine what other elements will be present. In this book, auxiliary verbs are treated as a separate word class (‘auxiliaries’) as they are a closed class (see A6). It is main (or lexical) verbs that are the topic of this section.

Traditionally, verbs are said typically to denote actions. There are two problems with this. First, nouns such as running, singing, fight or laughter also denote or imply actions. Second, many verbs are not to do with actions. They can also be to do with events, processes, states, relationships, and so on:

The building collapsed.

It snowed yesterday.

I want some chocolate.

I have three sisters

In other words, verbs do not just denote actions.

A5

V E R B S A N D T H E I R F O R M S 29

Identify the verb forms in the paragraph above beginning ‘Traditionally . . .’.

Don’t worry about repetitions.

As regards formal features, verbs can be recognised by the following characteristics:

they inflect for tense, for the third­person singular, and for the

❏ -ing and -ed

participles

they agree with, and usually follow, the subject when there is no auxiliary

❏

(‘agreement’ – see A8)

they form verb phrases, either on their own or in combination with auxiliaries,

❏

where they represent the ‘head’ (see A6) they precede objects

❏

It is the first point, their inflections, that is of interest in this section.

A5.1 Verb forms

Verbs have fairly extensive inflectional morphology; they have more possible regular variations than either nouns or adjectives. In addition there is much more irregularity.

Verbs can have between three and eight different forms (or parts).

Can you guess which verb has the most forms? Can you list the forms and label them?

TERMINOLOGY

Two of the labels above may have surprised you. Instead of ‘-ing participle’

and ‘-ed participle’ you may be familiar with ‘present participle’ and ‘past participle’. However, I have dropped these terms because there is nothing

‘present’ or ‘past’ about the forms they represent. The present and past nature of verb phrases is conveyed by the tense forms, not by the participles. Even though ‘-ed participle’ is not entirely accurate (because not all such forms are formed with -ed), it is still a better label.

Regular and irregular verbs

There is an important distinction between ‘regular’ and ‘irregular’ verbs. Regular verbs have four forms; if the basic form is known, the other three can be predicted from it. These three are:

the third person singular, which is formed by adding

❏ -s or -es to the basic form

(see B2 for a discussion of person);

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Activity A5.1

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Activity A5.2

the

❏ -ing participle, which is formed by adding -ing (and deleting silent e);

the past tense and

❏ -ed participle, which have the same form, namely with the addition of -ed or -d.

See the Website Reference A5.1 and A5.2 for the rules governing the spelling and pronunciation of regular verb forms.

The table below shows the forms of one typical regular verb, like, with those of one irregular verb, know, as well as those for be, for comparison.

Table A5.1.1 Forms of regular and irregular verbs

REGULAR IRREGULAR ‘BE’

a) basic form: infinitive like know be

present am, are

b) 3rd person singular -s present likes knows is

c) past liked knew was, were

d) -ing participle liking knowing being

e) -ed participle liked known been

Irregular verbs have between three and five forms (and eight in the case of be).

The third person singular and -ing participle are predictable, as with regular verbs.

However, the forms of the past tense (usually) and -ed participle (always) are not predictable. This explains why we have to list three forms when trying to remember how to use irregular verbs. Here are a few examples:

basic form past tense -ed participle

see saw seen

go went gone

fly flew flown

buy bought bought

show showed shown (or showed)

There are about 150 irregular verbs in English (more, if we count archaic forms).

Some are them are rare (e.g. forsake, forsook, forsaken), but many of them are very common, such as those above. A list is given in the Website Reference section.

There are a number of ways to make some sense out of this irregularity. If we divide up the verbs according to the differences between the basic form, past tense and -ed participle, there are five patterns:

A. where all three forms are the same:

put, put, put

spread, spread, spread

This occurs with some verbs ending in /d/ or /t/.

B. where the base and the past tense are the same. This is very rare.

V E R B S A N D T H E I R F O R M S 31

C. where the base and -ed participle are the same:

come, came, come This is quite rare.

D. where the past tense and -ed participle are the same have, had, had

find, found, found lead, led, led

Note that the two forms, though the same, are not predictable from the basic form. This type of irregular verb is very common.

E. where all three forms are different drink, drank, drunk

speak, spoke, spoken blow, blew, blown

As exemplified by types A and D above, the past tense and -ed participle forms of most irregular verbs are the same.

Another way to categorise irregular verbs is according to vowel changes, for example:

swim, swam, swum sing, sang, sung sink, sank, sunk

but this is limited, and there are verbs which look deceptively similar: swing, swung (not swang), swung.

Some verbs vary between regularity and irregularity. Thus speed has the regular form speeded for both past tense and -ed participle as well as sped; spill likewise has both spilt and spilled and leap has leaped and leapt. Such verbs are all indicated in the Website Reference section.

VARIATION IN ENGLISH

Gotten is preferred in American English to the British English got as the past participle of get.

A5.2 Finite forms vs non-finite forms

We make one basic distinction between verb forms: between ‘finite’ (or ‘tensed’) forms and ‘non­finite’ (or ‘non­tensed’) forms. The three finite forms are the present, third person singular -s and past tense forms; they are the ones to do with tense.

The three non­finite forms are the infinitive, and -ing and -ed participles. (There are four if we distinguish the bare infinitive from the to infinitive, e.g. love and to love.) The reason for distinguishing them is that non­finite forms cannot make a verb phrase on their own (see A6); they are ‘unfinished’ and need a finite form to complete them. Finite (complete) forms, by contrast, may stand on their own. Since tense is an obligatory choice in English, all verb phrases must be either present or past.

So, although the present and infinitive have the same form (except in the case of be), it is important to distinguish them. For example, the two following sentences seem to be identical apart from the addition of will:

a) I have it b) I will have it

But in fact what is really happening is that one finite form in a), the present tense have, is being replaced by another, will, in b), and it is the non­finite infinitive, have, in b) that is being added. See C5 for another example of this.

This distinction will be important when we discuss verb phrases in A6 and clauses in later sections.

A5.3 The ‘future tense’

So far we have seen two tenses: past and present. How many other tenses are there in English?

Look at the verb forms below. Which refer to future time? What is the difference in meaning between them? (i.e. what meaning do they have in addition to ‘future’?)

1. You will do as you are told.

2. The train leaves in 15 minutes.

3. I’m seeing him tonight. I’ll tell him then.

4. They’re going to sell their house.

5. (knock on door) That’ll be Yoyo.

Not all of the forms above exclusively refer to the future. If we say it’s raining or it rains then the time reference is normally present or general. If we compare it’s going to rain with it’ll rain, in the latter, there is a personal element involved:

promise or prediction, while the former suggests the speaker is looking at dark clouds.

So we can offer the following reasons why there is no future tense in English:

tense in English (present/past) is marked by inflections; if we wanted to ‘invent’

❏

a future tense we would need to take -ll and attach it to the end of verbs: ‘it rain’ll’

will

❏ and shall grammatically belong with the modal auxiliaries (see B6) will

❏ doesn’t always refer to future time, and when it does, there is always another meaning, e.g. prediction, command or promise

though

❏ will is very frequent, other forms have as good a claim to be a future tense, e.g. be going to. (See the reading in D5.)

Activity A5.3

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Activity A5.4

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V E R B S A N D T H E I R F O R M S 33

Thus there are various ways of referring to future time in English, but nothing that can reasonably be called a future tense. And if will is not a marker of the future tense, then would is not a marker of a conditional tense. So what we are left with is two tenses: past and present.

A5.4 Other verb forms

There are two other (finite) verb forms that you need to be familiar with: the imperative and the subjunctive. The imperative (e.g. Sit down!) is identical in form with the infinitive; it is explained in B9.

The subjunctive is the name given to certain ‘unexpected’ finite verb forms which are the remnants of a once extensive system in English. It is found nowadays only in a few situations:

after conjunctions such as

❏ if, if only and as though, and the verb wish, to express a hypothetical idea:

If I were rich . . .

It’s as though he were looking for trouble.

This is a formal use. The expected form, was, is also possible.

after certain verbs, such as

❏ recommend, suggest, advise, and after adjectives such as important, to suggest a future ‘desired’ state or action (the ‘mandative’ subjunctive):

I suggest he leave immediately. (instead of the expected leaves, which is also possible)

It is important that you be there on time. (instead of are, which is also possible)

This is also formal.

in certain fixed phrases expressing wishes:

❏

God save the Queen. Long live the King.

Except for the verb be, the subjunctive is only noticeable in the third person singular, where the -s ending is not used. With be, the present subjunctive is the same for all persons (‘be’), as is the past subjunctive (‘were’).

Comments

Activity A5.1: The forms are: are*, said, denote, are, denote, imply, are, (to) do, can*, be, (to) do. Those marked with an asterisk are auxiliaries.

Activity A5.2: The verb is be. The eight forms are:

be infinitive

am, are, is present tense forms was, were past tense forms being -ing participle been -ed participle

As can be seen, be makes several distinctions in present and past tense forms that other verbs do not make.

Activity A5.3: The answer is ‘none’. You may have come to a total of eight, twelve, or even sixteen forms (if the ‘conditional’ is known to you), but English basically has only two tenses: present and past. You may have suggested ‘perfect’ and ‘con­

tinuous’ forms, and in pedagogic terms it is acceptable to talk about the ‘present perfect’ or ‘past continuous’ tenses. But in scientific grammar the ideas of perfect and continuous are covered by another concept, ‘aspect’, which is dealt with formally in A6 and semantically in B5.

What may surprise you most is to be told that there is no future tense in English.

The claim that there is a future tense in English is based on a ‘fallacy’ (a fundament­

ally incorrect belief), that time and tense are equivalent, that because there are past, present and future ‘times’, there should be past, present and future ‘tenses’.

Time is a notional category; tense is a grammatical, linguistic category. There is no one­to­one relationship between the two. For one thing, the future is very different from the past and present, in that it is not certain, which means that when we refer to the future we are involving other ideas, such as predictions, promises or plans, rather than facts.

Activity A5.4: All of the underlined verb forms refer to the future apart from -ll in 5, which indicates a current deduction, based on the evidence of the knock on the door (and perhaps Yoyo’s known propensity for lateness). In 1 will has the idea of an order; in 2 the present tense refers to a future event in a fixed schedule; in 3 the present continuous suggests a current plan or arrangement for the future, while -ll has the idea of a promise. In 4 the selling of the house is made to seem a matter of course.

In document Tratamiento nutricional de pacientes con enfermedad pulmonar obstructiva crónica en situación de desnutrición (página 65-70)