Learn Forms of Verbs in the English Grammar

Do you think learning forms of verbs is easy and clear? The answer is both Yes and No; it depends on how you have learnt the forms of verbs. This is something you must have mastered in the junior levels of your school. Perhaps, in Grade 3 or 4! Since then you have been practising every day. This is on the tip of the tongue, right? That's great! But if I ask you to tell me the forms of verbs you have learnt, you will confidently say without taking a second "V¹, V², V³, V⁴ and V⁵". Yes? Now, if you are thinking about how I knew your answer, then who does not know this. It is, of course, not surprising! I had already guessed that this would be your answer. What may surprise you is that this way of learning the forms of verbs is too confusing. Yes, you have heard right - too confusing! In this article, I am going to illustrate how this is not a proper way of keeping the forms of verbs in the memory.

As we know,  words that denote action, state, possession or ownership are known as verbs, which always play the mandatory role in making sentences complete and meaningful. The verbs in English grammar are categorised differently based on their roles in the sentences. For instance, main verbs, auxiliary verbs, transitive, intransitive, ergative, action, stative, finite, non-finite verbs, etc. Here, the focus is not on different types of verbs but on the forms of verbs only.  The forms of verbs help us to show tense, aspect, or time of activities. The forms of verbs are of the main verbs only. There are four forms of the verbs in the English grammar. They are: Present form, Past form, Past participle and Present participle, and one more we add to the list is an infinitive form. 

You have	You should have
V¹ and V⁵	Present Form (Ø/-s/-es)
V²	Past Form (-ed)
V³	Past Participle or PP (-en)
V⁴	Present Participle (-ing)
-	Infinitive

The present form has always two numbers, i.e. singular and plural. This is inflected with -s/-es to go into the plural form whereas it does not explicitly experience any inflection in its plural form. This form inflects to show tense and person in the sentence. This is inflected to agree with the number and person of the subject of the sentence. It means if the subject is singular, the verb is inflected with either -s or -es to become the singular number. Similarly, in the case of the plural subject, there is no explicit change in the form of the verb and this means the verb is plural to agree with its subject's number. Now, you must be thinking that then V¹ is the plural number and V⁵ is the singular one. Yes, up to now it's really OK, but when we look at them in the sentence, you will completely be bewildered. Let's consider some sentences.

For example,

We like to watch a romantic movie.

Arnav and Anshika love icecream.

Angelina will support me.

Note that "-ed" and "-en" are just the past and the past participle morphemes that simply mark the two different forms of the verbs. They never mean that every past form of the verb takes "-ed" or past participle "-en". For example, went, cut, etc. are in the past form but they do not have "-ed" attached to them. Similarly, gone, played, created, cut, created, etc. are the past participle forms and have not been inflected with "-en". Those markers may or may not be explicitly attached to the verbs, but they are still in those verb forms. Therefore, do not be confused with them.

Now, in the above three sentences, can you say in what forms the verbs watch, love and support are? I guess your answer is "Each is in the V¹ form or present form." And number? Again confidently, you will say "plural number". You are absolutely wrong! Your answer sounds OK with love only. Then what is correct? The verbs watch and support are not in the V¹ form or present form, nor are they plural in number. They are actually infinitive verbs. How? Infinitive verbs never agree with the number and person of the subject of the sentence, nor do they indicate tense, number and person because they are non-finite verbs. If the verb watch had been in the V¹ form or present form, it would have been the main verb of the sentence. The verb watch is not the main verb, but love and support are. To understand this in a clear-cut way, we have to look at the infinitive form of the verb. The infinitive (in short "-inf") verbs are of two types: they are to-infinitive and bare infinitive without "to". A to-infinitive verb can never be a main verb in the sentence whereas a bare infinitive verb can play the role of a main verb. Therefore, the verb watch is preceded by the preposition to and is termed a to-infinitive verb. On the other hand, the verb support is a bare infinitive verb and is the main verb of the sentence. These two verbs in the first and the last sentences will not be affected if the number and/or person of the subjects in both sentences are changed. They remain the same. Remember none (watch and support) of them are V¹ or present form.

The change in the number and/or person of the subjects will also be noticed in the verbs "like" and love which are the main verbs because they are under the control of their subjects. The subjects are in plural, that's why they are in the plural number. Here, you can say they are in the V¹ or present forms. The verb "like" is a finite verb that shows tense, person and number but support shows neither of them. If we change the subject "we" in the first sentence into the third person singular number, its effect will be noticed in "like" and it becomes "likes" not in "watch".

Note infinitive verbs are never called V¹ or present form: they are the base form of the verb. When two main verbs come together side by side in a sentence or clause, the second always goes into the infinitive form. Another situation of the occurrence of the infinitive verb is when the main verb is preceded by the modal verbs.

Finite and Non-finite Verbs

Finite verbs are those that have a specific tense, agree with the subject in terms of number and person, and show time (past, present, or future) and just the opposite are non-finite verbs.

For examples,

Anita writes an email.

Anshika won the tournament last year.

"writes" and "won" are the present form and the past form respectively and are finite verbs. The verb "writes" indicates tense, time, number and person of the subject whereas "won" is also a finite verb because it refers to an action that has already happened, regardless of the number or person. It means both the present forms and the past forms are finite verbs.

On the contrary, non-finite verbs remain the same regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural. They never show tense, number, or person. They can also not form complete verb phrases. The past participle form and the present participle form are non-finite verbs. They need the support of auxiliary verbs (helping verbs) to form either complete verb phrases or to indicate tense, number, or person.

For examples,

Narendra is discussing a cross-cutting issue in the classroom.
Somya was describing a burglar to the police.
A lorry has crushed a motorbike.
The government had announced compensation for the victims.

In these above four sentences, discussing and describing are present forms while crushed and announced are past participle verbs. "is", "was", "has" and "had" are auxiliary/helping verbs. If we forget for a while these auxiliary verbs, we cannot confirm what tense these two present participle and past participle are showing. They can indicate neither the number and/or person of their subjects. Thus, the verbs discussing and describing (present participle), and crushed and announced (past participle) are non-finite.

Forms of Verbs	Nature of Verbs
Present form	Finite verb
Past form	Finite verb
Past participle	Non-finite verb
Present participle	Non-finite verb
Infinitive verb	Non-finite verb