AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE
                                                              Do       What does he want?      Who did it?
                           VERB                                        I do believe you.       He did his part well.
                                                              Shall    I shall go.             He shall get his
      A Verb is a word that tells or asserts something about                                   dues tomorrow.
a person or thing. Verb comes from the Latin "verbnum"                                         You shall do your work.
meaning a word."
                                                              Will                             He will go.
      A Verb may tell :
                                                                                               I will help you.
(i) What a person or thing does.                                                               God willed other.
      For example,                                                     May God save us.        He may pass the test.
          The man laughs.          The car moves.             May      You may go.             Work hard that you
          Neena sings.                                                                         may succeed.
(ii) What is done to a person or thing.                      Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
      For example,                                                Look at the sentences
          The door is shut.        The glass is broken.                I love, Tom saw,         You lost
          Ram is scolded.                                    The meaning is not clear and the sentences are also not
(iii) What a person or thing is.                             complete. We do want to know what I love, what saw and
      For example,                                           what you lost. The Verb love, saw and lost require some
          I feel sorry.            Man is mortal.            other word put after each of them to make the meaning
          Robin is dead.                                     clear and to complete the sentences.
      A Verb often consists of more than one word.                So, if we put in these words :
      For example,                                                     I love my parents.
          Boys were running.                                           Tom saw a tiger.
          He has worked his sum.                                       You lost a pen.
          The purse has been found.                          the meaning gets clear and also, the sentences are com-
          I have done my duty.                               plete.
Principal And Auxiliary Verbs                                     Thus, verbs like love, see and lose which take an-
      Ray worked hard.             Children like games.      other word to make their sense complete are called Tran-
                                                             sitive Verbs.
      I want a pen.
      Boys help themselves.                                       Trans means across or over; itive means passing or
                                                             going. Therefore, Transitive means passing over.
      In these sentences, each of the verbs expresses its
full meaning without the help of any other Verb.                  In the sentence above, I love my parents, the action of
                                                             loving passes across from myself to parents. This is why
      They are called Principal Verbs.
                                                             we call love a transitive Verb. Similarly, the verbs see and
      Look at the following sentences :
                                                             lose are also transitive verbs.
          See that I may go there.
                                                                  Thus, A Transitive Verb is a verb that denotes an
          I shall go there.                                  action which passes over from the door or subject to an
          He will go there.                                  object.
          You did not go there.                              Intransitive Verbs
      In each of the above sentences, we have two verbs -         Look at the sentences
may go, shall go, will go and did go. The Principal Verb is
                                                                       The boy runs.                  The bird sings.
go. Each of the other verbs - may, shall, will and do gives
a new meaning to the Principal Verb go. All of them help               The dog barks.
the Verb go by giving it different meaning in each sen-           The verbs runs, sings and barks tell us what the sub-
tence. They are Helping verbs or Auxiliary verbs.            ject does. No other word is required to make sense here.
      Thus, a Verb that helps another Verb in forming its         Thus, An Intransitive Verb is a Verb that denotes an
tenses is called a Helping or Auxiliary Verb.                action which does not pass over to an object, or which
      The verbs : be (am, is, are, was, were), have, has,    expresses a state or being.
had, do, does, did, shall, will and may are used both as          Intransitive means not transitive.
Auxiliary Verbs and Principal Verbs.                              For example,
      For example,                                                     He ran a long race. [Action].
  Verb     Auxiliary               Principal                           The baby sleeps. [State].
           I am going.             I am glad.                          There is a flaw in this diamond. [Being]
  Be       Tom is writing.         Tom is ready.                                 USAGE OF VERBS
           You are loved.          You are right.                1. Most verbs can be used both as transitive and as
           I was reading           Bob was late.                     intransitive verbs.
           They were coming.       They were said.                   Used Transitively             Used Intransitively
           I have seen him.        I have a hat.
                                                                (a) I feel a severe pain in        How do you feel.
  Have Doll has left.              She has to go.
                                                                     my teeth.
           I had seen it before. I had breakfast there.
                                                                (b) The ox kicked the man.         The ox never kicks.
           We do not see air.      Do your duty.
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