What verbs do
Verbs are, along with nouns, the most important word class in any
language. Without verbs and nouns, almost nothing can be
expressed at all.
If we take a sentence such as:
- The old man was happily watching his home team beat Arsenal on TV.
and remove the verbs and nouns, we'll get nonsense:
- The old happily his home on.
Remove the rest of the words and leave the verbs and nouns, however, and some sense can be made:
- man was watching team beat Arsenal TV.
The verb is "Our most powerful impression of experience"
(Halliday 1994:106)
There are guides elsewhere on this site to the forms of verbs: tenses, voice, aspect, transitivity (subjects and objects) etc. and you should certainly check them out for more. This link will take you to the verbs index for this part of the site.
Here, we are only concerned with what verbs do.
In primary schools the world over, verbs are called 'doing words'.
Among much else taught in schools, however, that's only partly right.
Verbs are a lot more versatile than that.
 |
The three main things that verbs do |
doing verbs |
|
 |
 |
| the material world | behaving and feeling |
Verbs certainly describe doing but the there are two sorts of doing:
- Verbs describing actions in the external, material world.
- Verbs describing behaving and feeling.
Here's what is meant:
| Verbs in the external, material world. | Verbs of behaving and feeling. |
|
the machine works noisily the string broke the bomb exploded the house fell down the train took them home |
they watched TV she sang in church I sneezed constantly I worried half to death John forgot her name |
thinking and talking verbs |
|
 |
 |
| perceiving and emoting | putting thought into words |
There are two sorts of these, too.
- Verbs referring to thinking, wanting, perceiving and emoting.
- Verbs referring to putting thought into words.
Here is what is meant:
| thinking, wanting, perceiving and emoting | putting thought into words |
|
I enjoyed the film she noticed his nervousness I remembered his face I thought he was a fool they hated the place |
he told me what to do I said I was angry they explained the problem they asked to be allowed to go she described his house |
being verbs |
|
 |
 |
| existing | relating |
Again, there are two sorts:
- Verbs which refer to something's existence.
- Verbs which refer to relationships between things or people or their attributes.
Here is what is meant:
| existence | relationships |
|
there are no cigarettes left there was some milk in the fridge there's nothing to be said is there anything more to say? no shops exist here now |
the office is down the hall this tastes of garlic it feels rough we were in Paris he looks like his brother |
The summary
 |
So what? |
So quite a lot.
Firstly, verbs which look the same may be doing different things. For example:
- He feels cold (a perceiving verb) vs. The weather feels cold (a being, relational verb)
- The car crashed (a verb relating to doing in the external world) vs. He crashed the car (a behaving verb)
Secondly, in order to be able to speak a language, even at a very basic level, learners have to be able to do all 6 things with verbs. This means they need to learn:
- How to describe things that happen in the external world of
material objects from the basic
The plane landed
to more complex ideas such as
The experiment failed because the equipment had become contaminated
in which two different verb processes are involved (material [failed] and relational [had become]). - How to describe behaviour and feeling in, e.g.
He sat quietly because he wasn't worried. - How to describe thought and emotion in, e.g.
She assumed I was laughing at her and hated me for it. - How to describe what people say in, e.g.
She told me why John wasn't there
or
She explained why John disliked the film
in both of which we have two types of verb operating. - How to say something exists or not as in, e.g.
There's a hotel on the corner
There aren't any customers today - How to say how one thing is related to another or what
attributes it has as in e.g.
She's the boss now and she is very difficult to talk to.
You don't need to teach all that in one lesson (and you'd be well
advised not to try) but it helps
enormously if you can recognise the sorts of things verbs do so that
you can follow threads in the classroom consistently by introducing
verbs of a similar type to extend your learners' abilities.
Here are some examples of how a knowledge of types of verbal
processes also allows us to explain the grammar of the language
clearly when learners encounter verbs:
- The reason we can say:
Be quiet! I'm thinking
but not
*I'm thinking it's a pity
is to do with the fact that the verb think can be both a behavioural verb, in the first sense, and a verb which serves to make the internal world of the speaker external, in the second sense where the normal tense form would be:
I think it's a pity. - We can also say, for example:
The house lies on the corner of the street
but it is unusual if not wrong to say:
The house is lying on the corner of the street
because the verb is used to show the relation between the street corner and the house and verbs which express relationships are not used in tense forms which mean an event is on-going. - The difference between:
He is saying his prayers
and
He says his brother is coming
is also explained by thinking about what the verb is doing, not what it looks like. - The difference between
He is becoming angry
and
He became a doctor
can be explained by knowing that the first verb is used to refer to his behaviour and the second verb is used to refer to the relationship between he and doctor. - In the same way, the difference between:
I assume nothing
and
I am assuming you will be coming
can only be explained by looking at the different processes the verb refers to.
You should be aware that other languages encode the various things that verbs do differently from English.
If you would like to read more, there is
a fuller
and more technical description of verbal processes on this site.
This link will take you
back to the verbs index for this part of the site.
There is a short test to see what you can remember.
References:
Butt, D et al, 2001, Using Functional
Grammar: an explorer's guide, Sydney: NCELTR
Halliday, M, 1994, An introduction to functional grammar, 2nd
edition, London: Edward Arnold