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10 Types of Verbs
A book by the linguist Beth Levin classifies three thousand English verbs into about eighty-five classes based
on the constructions they appear in; its subtitle is A Preliminary Investigation.
A verb is customarily defined as a part of speech (or word class) that describes an action or
occurrence or indicates a state of being. But just when is a word a verb?

Generally, it makes more sense to define a verb by what it does than by what it is. Just as the
"same" word (rain or snow, for example) can serve as either a noun or a verb, the same verb can
play various roles depending on how it's used.
Put simply, verbs move our sentences along in many different ways.
Here, by identifying 10 types of verbs, we'll briefly consider some of their more common functions.
For additional examples and more detailed explanations of these verb forms and functions, follow
the links to our Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms.
 
 Auxiliary Verbs and Lexical Verbs
An auxiliary verb (also known as a helping verb) determines the mood or tense of another verb in a
phrase. In the sentence "It will rain tonight," for example, the verb will "helps" the verb rain by
pointing to the future. The primary auxiliaries are be, have, and do. The modal auxiliaries include
can, could, may, must, should, will, and would.
A lexical verb (also known as a full or main verb) is any verb in English that isn't an auxiliary verb: it
conveys a real meaning and doesn't depend on another verb: "It rained all night."
 Dynamic Verbs and Stative Verbs
A dynamic verb indicates an action, process, or sensation: "I bought a new guitar."
A stative verb (such as be, have, know, like, own, and seem) describes a state, situation, or
condition: "Now I own a Gibson Explorer."
 Finite Verbs and Nonfinite Verbs
A finite verb expresses tense and can occur on its own in a main clause: "She walked to school."
A nonfinite verb (an infinitive or participle) doesn't show a distinction in tense and can occur on its
own only in a dependent phrase or clause: "While walking to school, she spotted a blue jay."
 Regular Verbs and Irregular Verbs
A regular verb (also known as a weak verb) forms its past tense and past participle by adding -
dor -ed (or in some cases -t) to the base form: "We finished the project." (See Forming the Past
Tense of Regular Verbs.)
An irregular verb (also known as a strong verb) doesn't form the past tense by adding -d or -ed:
"Gus ate the wrapper on his candy bar." (See Introduction to Irregular Verbs in English.)
 Transitive Verbs and Intransitive Verbs
A transitive verb is followed by a direct object: "She sells seashells."
An intransitive verb doesn't take a direct object: "He sat there quietly." (This distinction is
especially tricky because many verbs have both transitive and intransitive functions.)
Does that cover everything verbs can do? Far from it. Causative verbs, for example, show that
some person or thing helps to make something happen. Catenative verbs join with other verbs to
form a chain or series. Copular verbs link the subject of a sentence to its complement.
Then there are performative verbs, prepositional verbs, iteratives, and reporting verbs. And we
haven't even touched on the passive or the subjunctive.

But you get the idea. Though they can get tense and moody, verbs are hard-working parts of speech, and we
can count on them to make things happen in many different ways.
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1- Auxiliary verbs
Definition
In English grammar, an auxiliary is a verb (such as have, do, orwill) that determines
the mood, tense, or aspect of another verb in a verb phrase.
Auxiliary verbs always precede main verbs within a verb phrase. Auxiliaries are also known
as helping verbs. Contrast with lexical verbs.
Etymology
From the Latin, "help"
 
Examples and Observations
 "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
(Isaac Newton)
 
 "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."
(Sir Francis Bacon)
 
 "I did not invent Irish dancing."
(Bart Simpson, The Simpsons)
 
 "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and beenwidely
regarded as a bad move."
(Douglas Adams)
 
 "After I die I shall return to earth as the doorkeeper of a bordello, and I won't let a one of you in."
(Arturo Toscanini)
 
 "And as for Gussie Fink-Nottle, many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his
appearance and started embalming him on sight."
(P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves, 1934)
 
 The Auxiliary Verbs in English
"The auxiliary verbs of English are the following:
 
1. can, may, will, shall, must, ought, need, dare [modals]
2. be, have, do, use [non-modals]
Some of them appear in idioms--be going, have got, had better/best, would rather/sooner (as in It is going to
rain, I've got a headache, etc.)--and in such cases it is just the first verb (be, have, had, would) that is an
auxiliary, not the whole idiom."
(R. Huddleston and G. Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University
Press, 2002)
 
 Differences Between Auxiliary Verbs and Main Verbs
"The auxiliary verbs differ from main verbs in the following ways:
1. They do not take word endings to form participles or agree with their subject. Thus, we say She may go to
the store, but never She mays go to the store.
2. They come before not in negative clauses, and they do not use do to form the negative: You might not like
that. A main verb uses do to form the negative and follows not: You do not like that.
3. They come before the subject in a question: Can I have another apple? Would you like to go to the
movies? Main verbs must use do and follow the subject to form questions: Do you want to go to the movies?
4. They take the infinitive without to: I will call you tomorrow. A main verb that takes an infinitive always
uses to: I promise to call you tomorrow."
(The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. Houghton Mifflin, 2005)
 
 The Maximum Number of Auxiliaries
"English allows up to three auxiliaries in a sentence, four in a passive . . .. The first must be finite and the
others nonfinite. In the following example, we have a modal followed by have followed by the past
participle of the verb 'to be':
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I could've been a contender.

(Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront)"
(Barry J. Blake, All About Language. Oxford University Press, 2008)
 
 Irregular Auxiliaries
"The verbs be, have, do, and go are irregular in many of the world's languages. They are the most commonly
used verbs in most languages and often pitch in as auxiliaries: 'helper' verbs that are drained of their own
meanings so that they may combine with other verbs to express tense and other grammatical information, as
in He is jogging, He has jogged, He is going to jog. Many language scientists believe that the meanings of
these verbs--existence, possession, action, motion--are at the core of the meanings of all verbs, if
only metaphorically."
(Steven Pinker, Words and Rules. HarperCollins, 1999)
 
 Omitting Words After Auxiliary Verbs
"To avoid repeating words from a previous clause or sentence we use an auxiliary verb (be, have, can, will,
would, etc.) instead of a whole verb group (e.g. 'has finished') or instead of a verb and what follows it (e.g.
'like to go to Paris'):
- She says she's finished, but I don't think she has. (instead of . . . has finished.)
- 'Would any of you like to go to Paris?' 'I would.' (instead of I would like to go to Paris.)
If there is more than one auxiliary verb in the previous clause or sentence, we leave out all the auxiliary verbs
except the first instead of repeating the main verb. Alternatively, we can use two (or more) auxiliary verbs:
- Alex hadn't been invited to the meal, although his wife had. (or . . . had been.)
- 'They could have been delayed by the snow.' "Yes, they could.' (or . . . could have (been).)"
(Martin Hewings, Advanced Grammar in Use, 2nd ed. Cambridge University. Press, 2005)

2- Lexical verbs
Definition
In English grammar, a lexical verb is any verb that is not an auxiliary verb (or helping verb). Also
called a main verb (definition #1) or a full verb.

Because a lexical verb conveys a semantic (or lexical) meaning, it may be informed by the semantic
meaning of words that precede or follow it. The great majority of verbs in the language are lexical
verbs. 
Examples and Observations:
 "Verbs can be divided into lexical and auxiliary verbs. A VP [verb phrase] contains one lexical verb and
(optionally) up to four auxiliaries. . . . Examples of lexical verbs are arrive, see, walk, copula be, transitive do,
etc. They carry a real meaning and are not dependent on another verb. In addition to a lexical verb, the VP
[verb phrase] may contain auxiliaries. Auxiliaries depend on another verb, add grammatical information, and
are grouped together with the lexical verb in a Verb Group."
(Elly van Gelderen, An Introduction to the Grammar of English. John Benjamins, 2000)

 
 "A full VP must contain a lexical verb and it may contain auxiliary verbs. In the following the lexical verbs are
in [italics] and the auxiliary verbs are in [bold].
[1a] Diana plays the piano. [1b] Diana played the piano.
[2] Anders is explaining his generalization.
[3] Maggie should have recycled those bottles.
[4] Wim may have been preparing his lecture.
(Noel Burton-Roberts, Analysing Sentences: An Introduction to English Syntax, 3rd ed. Routledge, 2011)
 
 "I made an appointment with my doctor that afternoon, and he referred me to a psychiatrist. I got pills,
I had about a dozen sessions with her. All of that helped. It was useful to me, yes. But secondary, I felt.
Secondary to my yanking the steering wheel, my pulling sharply left as I braked, to my wanting so
desperately and reflectively to be in life, to be still moving and doing, those wonderful verbs."
(Sue Miller, The World Below. Random House, 2005)
 
 The Most Common Lexical Verbs
"The LGSWE [Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English] compares a variety of lexical features
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across spoken and written registers and reports that almost one-third of all content words in spoken
interaction are lexical verbs (also known as full verbs, e.g., eat, dance). Lexical verbs are extremely
common in both conversation and fiction but quite rare in written registers such as news and academic
prose. The single-word lexical verbs say, get, go, know, and think are the five most common verbs occurring
in British and American conversation. The 12 most common lexical verbs identified in LGSWE (say, get, go,
know, think, see, make, come, take, want, give, and mean--occurring over 1,000 times per million words),
account for 'nearly 45% of all lexical verbs in conversation.'"
(Eric Friginal, The Language of Outsourced Call Centers. John Benjamins, 2009)

 
 Similarities Between Lexical Verbs and Auxiliary Verbs
"English auxiliary and lexical verbs . . . are semantically, syntactically, and lexically similar . . .. For
many auxiliaries there is a lexical verb counterpart with an extremely similar meaning—e.g., the pairs can/is
able to, will/is going to, and must/have to). Auxiliary and lexical verbs are syntactically similar in that both
types often take verbal endings, follow subject noun phrases, and lack the grammatical properties of nouns,
adjectives, and other syntactic categories. Moreover, auxiliary and lexical verbs typically have identical forms
(e.g., copula and auxiliary forms of be, possessive and auxiliary forms of have, lexical verb and auxiliary
forms of do). The remarkable degree of similarity can be appreciated by comparing pairs of sentences such
as he is sleepy and he is sleeping, he has cookies and he has eaten cookies, and he does windows and he
does not do windows."
(Karen Stromswold, "Language Acquisition." The New Cognitive Neurosciences, 2nd ed., edited by Michael
S. Gazzaniga. MIT Press, 2000) 

 
 Catenative Verbs
"A number of lexical verbs are semantically very similar to auxiliaries. We see this in pairs like must : have
got to (Must we do that? : Do we have to do that?) or will : want (He won't go : He doesn't want to go).
These lexical verbs, which, like auxiliaries, are followed by non-finite verb forms
(infinitives, gerunds, participles) or by indirect statements and questions in the form of finite
that- and wh- clauses, are here called catenative verbs."
(Stephan Gramley and Kurt-Michael Pátzold, A Survey of Modern English, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2004)  

3- Dynamic verbs
Definition:
A verb used primarily to indicate an action, process, or sensation as opposed to a state. Also called
an action verb or an event verb. Contrast with stative verb.
There are three major types of dynamic verbs: 1) accomplishment verbs(expressing action that has
a logical endpoint), 2) achievement verbs(expressing action that occurs instantaneously), and
3) activity verbs(expressing action that can go on for an indefinite period of time).
Examples and Observations:
 "They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it."
(Hall of Fame baseball player Willie Mays)
 
 "He had learned to walk and run and fight in the twisting alleys and dirty gutters of Rome."
(Howard Fast, Spartacus. Blue Heron Press, 1951)
 "I ate a banana and drank a glass of nonfat chocolate milk for breakfast. After that, I washed the breakfast
dishes with liquid soap and lemon juice. I threw them in the dish drainer so they could dry naturally
and left the house."
(Lori Aurelia Williams, Broken China. Simon & Schuster, 2006)
 "They roared and clapped, sang and shouted as I performed, and with each moment my heart filled fuller."
(Emmanuel Jal, War Child: A Child Soldier's Story. St. Martin's Griffin, 2010)
 "America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair."
(Arnold Toynbee, BBC news summary, July 14, 1954)
 "[I]n summer everything fills. The day itself widens and stretches almost around the clock; these are very
high latitudes, higher than Labrador's. You want to run all night. Summer people move into the houses that
had stood empty, unseen, and unnoticed all winter. The gulls scream all day and smash cockles; by August
they are bringing the kids."
(Annie Dillard, "Mirages," 1982)
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 "Brandt ran back to the deepest corner of the outfield grass, the ball descended beyond his reach
and struck in the crotch where the bullpen met the wall, bounced chunkily, and vanished."
(John Updike, "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," 1960)
 "Verbs act. Verbs move. Verbs do. Verbs strike, soothe, grin, cry, exasperate, decline, fly, hurt, and heal.
Verbs make writing go, and they matter more to our language than any other part of speech."
(Donald Hall and Sven Birkerts, Writing Well, 9th ed. Longman, 1997)
 What's the Difference Between a Dynamic Verb and a Stative Verb?
A dynamic verb (such as run, ride, grow, throw) is primarily used to indicate an action, process, or sensation.
In contrast, a stative verb (such as be, have, seem, know) is primarily used to describe a state or situation.
(Because the boundary between dynamic and stative verbs can be fuzzy, it's generally more useful to talk of
dynamic and stative meaning and usage.)
 Three Classes of Dynamic Verbs
"If a clause can be used to answer the question What happened?, it contains a non-stative (dynamic) verb. If
a clause cannot be so used, it contains a stative verb. . . .

"It is now accepted practice to divide dynamic verbs into three classes. . . . Activity, accomplishment and
achievement verbs all denote events. Activities denote events with no built-in boundary and stretching out
over time. Achievements denote events conceived of as occupying no time at all. Accomplishments denote
events with an activity phase and a closure phase; they can be spread out over time, but there is a built-in
boundary."
(Jim Miller, An Introduction to English Syntax. Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2002)
 
Also Known As: non-stative verb, action verb

4- Stative verbs
Definition
A stative verb is a verb (such as be, have, like, seem, prefer, understand, doubt, know) used
primarily to describe a state or situation as opposed to an action or process. Contrast with dynamic
verb.
Stative verbs usually don't occur in the progressive aspect or the imperative mood.
Examples and Observations
 "We are what we believe we are."
(attributed to C.S. Lewis, Jean Paul Sartre, and others)
  
 "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
 
 "The table is vestigially sticky, the curtains still drawn, the coffee instant, the bacon fatty and the light barely
adequate to read my paper."
(Joe Bennett, Mustn't Grumble. Simon & Schuster, 2006)
 
 "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
(Eleanor Roosevelt)
 
 Characteristics of Stative Verbs
Stative verbs can signify cognitive, emotional and physical states. They have the following characteristics,
which can serve as tests for stative verbs:
 
 The states expressed are continuous and unchanging while they last, which usually is for a long or indefinite
time.
 They do not have an end point. . . .
 It is impossible to ask the question How long have/has . . .? (e.g., How long have you known/needed/owned .
. .?)
 They do not normally occur in progressive aspect forms (*She is having a car).
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(Ron Cowan, The Teacher's Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press, 2008)

 
 Stative Verbs in Advertising
"[T]here is some advertising that plays with stative verbs. The McDonald's slogan I'm loving It uses a stative
verb in the present progressive form. I recently saw a magazine ad with the tagline, 'She's sensing a change
in the air.' So the advertising world seems to be having fun with stative verbs."
(Susan J. Behrens, Grammar: A Pocket Guide. Routledge, 2010)
 
 Differences Between Stative and Dynamic Verbs
"In practice, the boundary between stative and dynamic verbs is sometimes fuzzy, and it is generally more
useful to talk of stative and dynamic meaning and usage. In most varieties of English, some verbs are
normally stative (therefore no *I am owning this car, *Know how to give first aid!), but others are partly stative
and partly dynamic (no *She is liking to help people, but How are you liking your new job?; no *I am forgetting
their address, but Forget it!). Some verbs belong to both categories but with distinct meanings, as
with have in She has red hair and She is having dinner, In IndE [Indian English], the stative/dynamic
distinction described above is considered standard, but it is widely ignored, so that expressions like I am
owning this car and She is liking to help people are commonplace."
(Sylvia Chalker and Tom McArthur, The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford University
Press, 1992)
 
 Four Semantic Classes of Stative Verbs
"Our analysis follows previous proposals (notably Leech 2004 and Huddleston and Pullum 2002) that divide
verbs lending themselves to stative interpretation into four semantic classes:
(a) Perception and sensation (e.g. see, hear, smell, hurt, taste) . . .
(b) Cognition, emotion, attitude (e.g. think, feel, forget, long, remember) . . .
(c) Having and being (e.g. be, have, have to, cost, require) . . .
(d) Stance (e.g. sit, stand, lie, live, face)"
(Geoffrey Leech, Marianne Hundt, Christian Mair, and Nicholas Smith, Change in Contemporary English: A
Grammatical Study. Cambridge University Press, 2012)
 
Also Known As: stative, state verb, static verb

5- Finite verbs

Definition
In English grammar, a finite verb is a form of a verb that (a) shows agreement with a subject and (b)
is marked for tense. Contrast with nonfinite verb (or verbal).
If there is just one verb in a sentence, it is finite. (Put another way, a finite verb can stand by itself in
a sentence.) Finite verbs are sometimes called tensed verbs.

A finite clause is a word group that contains a finite verb form as its central element.
Etymology
From the Latin, "end"
 
Examples and Observations
 "The reason finite verbs are so important is their unique ability to act as the sentence-root. They can be
used as the only verb in the sentence, whereas all the others have to depend on some other word, so finite
verbs really stand out."
(Richard Hudson, An Introduction to Word Grammar. Cambridge University Press, 2010)

 
 Examples of Finite Verbs
In the following sentences (all of them lines from well-known movies), the finite verbs are in italics.
- "We rob banks."
(Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, 1967)
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- "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." 

(Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, 1991)

- "A boy's best friend is his mother."

(Norman Bates in Psycho, 1960)

- "We want the finest wines available to humanity. And we want them here, and we want them now!"
(Withnail in Withnail and I, 1986)

- "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and . . . blow."  

(Marie "Slim" Browning in To Have and Have Not, 1944)

- "Get busy living, or get busy dying."

(Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, 1994)
 
 The Finite Forms
"The base, third person singular, and past tense are finite forms of verbs because they can be contrasted
for tense (present and past), and marked for person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) and number(singular and plural).
I drive a car. [1st person, singular, present tense]
he drives a car. [3rd person, singular. present tense]
I/he drove a car. [1st and 3rd person, singular, past tense]
These three forms of the verb paradigm do not require additional helping verbs to express their meanings."
(Bernard T. O'Dwyer, Modern English Structures: Form, Function, and Position. Broadview Press, 2000)
 
 Five Ways to Identify Finite Verbs
"Finite verbs can be recognized by their form and their position in the sentence. Here are some of the things
to look for when you are trying to identify the finite verbs in a sentence:
 
1. Most finite verbs can take an -ed or a -d at the end of the word to indicate time in the past: cough,
coughed; celebrate, celebrated. A hundred or so finite verbs do not have these endings [see Principal Parts
of Irregular Verbs].
2. Nearly all finite verbs take an -s at the end of the word to indicate the present when the subject of the verb is
third-person singular: cough, he coughs; celebrate, she celebrates. The exceptions are auxiliary
verbs like can and must. Remember that nouns can also end in -s. Thus the dog races can refer to a
spectator sport or to a fast-moving third-person singular dog.
3. Finite verbs are often groups of words that include such auxiliary verbs as can, must, have, and be: can be
suffering, must eat, will have gone.
4. Finite verbs usually follow their subjects: He coughs. The documents had compromised him. They will
have gone.
5. Finite verbs surround their subjects when some forms of a question are asked: Is he coughing?
Did they celebrate?
(Ronald C. Foote, Cedric Gale, and Benjamin W. Griffith, Essentials of English. Barron's, 2000)

6- Non-finite verbs
Definition:
A form of the verb that does not show a distinction in tense and normally cannot stand alone as
the main verb in a sentence. Contrast with finite verb.
The main types of nonfinite verbs are infinitives (with or without to), -ing forms (also known
as present participles and gerunds), and past participles (also called en-forms).

Except for modal auxiliaries, all verbs have nonfinite forms.

A nonfinite phrase or clause is a word group that contains a nonfinite verb form as its central
element.
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Examples and Observations:

 Sentences that include a non-finite Verb Group are (58) and (59), with the non-finite Verb Groups in
bold. . . .
(58) Seeing the ordinary as extraordinary is something we all like to do.
(59) She forgot to google them.
In (58), seeing, is, like, and do are lexical verbs, but only is and like are finite. In (59), forgot and google are the
lexical verbs, but only forgot is finite."
(Elly van Gelderen, An Introduction to the Grammar of English, rev. ed. John Benjamins, 2010)
 Characteristics of Nonfinite Verbs
"A non-finite verb differs from a finite verb in that it cannot (normally) be used as the main verb of a clause.
Typically, the non-finite verb lacks agreement for person, number, and gender with its first argument
or Subject, is unmarked or reduced with respect to distinctions of Tense, Aspect, and Mood, and has certain
properties in common with adjectival or nominal predicates."
(Simon C. Dik and Kees Hengeveld, The Theory of Functional Grammar. Walter de Gruyter, 1997)
 Types of Nonfinite Verb Forms
"There are three types of nonfinite verb-forms in English: viz. (i) uninflected infinitive forms which comprise
simply the base or stem of the verb with no added inflection (such forms are frequently used after the so-
called infinitive-particle to; (ii) gerund forms which comprise the base plus the -ing suffix; (iii) and
(perfect/passive) participle forms which generally comprise the base plus the -(e)n inflection (though there
are numerous irregular participle forms in English). Thus, the bracketed clauses in (4) below are all nonfinite,
because they contain only nonfinite verb-forms: for example the italicised verb in (4)(a) is an infinitive, that in
(4)(b) is a gerund, and that in (4)(c) is a (passive) participle:
(4) (a) I've never known [John (to) be so rude to anyone]
(4) (b) We don't want [it raining on your birthday]
(4) (c) I had [my car stolen from the car-park]"
(Andrew Radford, Transformational Grammar: A First Course. Cambridge University Press, 1988)
 Auxiliaries With Nonfinite Verbs
Auxiliaries are required with non-finite verbs. This is their role to mark non-finite verb forms for
tense, aspect and voice, which non-finite verbs cannot express. Finite verbs mark these features on their
own. . . .

"[W]hen an auxiliary verb occurs with a non-finite form of a verb, the auxiliary is always the finite verb; if more
than one auxiliary occurs, the first auxiliary is always the finite verb."
(Bernard T. O'Dwyer, Modern English Structures: Form, Function, and Position, 2nd ed. Broadview Press,
2006)
  
 Nonfinite Clauses
"Non-finite clauses are clauses which lack a subject and a finite verb form; however, we still call
them clauses since they have some clause structure.

"They are introduced by the three non-finite verb forms; thus we can divide them into three types:
- infinitive clauses: I saw her leave the room.
- -ing (participle) clauses: I heard someone shouting for help.
- -ed (participle) clauses: I got the watch repaired in town.
Each non-finite clause in these examples has its own clause structure. The room is the direct
object of leave, help is the prepositional object of shout, and in town is an adverbial related to repair."
(Roger Berry, English Grammar: A Resource Book for Students. Routledge, 2012)

 
Alternate Spellings: non-finite verb

7- Regular verbs
Definition
A verb that forms its past tense and past participle by adding –d or -ed (or in some cases -t) to
the base form. Also known as a weak verb. Contrast with irregular verb.
The majority of English verbs are regular. These are the principal parts of regular verbs:
1. base form: the form found in a dictionary (for example, walk and talk)
2. -s form: used in the singular third person, present tense (walks and talks)
 Page|9

3. -ed form: used for the past tense and past participle (walked and talked)

4. -ing form: used for the present participle (walking and talking)
Examples and Observations
 "Stuart slipped into his old pants and prepared to go down the drain after the ring."
(E.B. White, Stuart Little, 1945)
 
 "I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees."
(G.K. Chesterton)
 
 "A practical man, and one who had a family to feed, he adjusted, accepted his fate, and became the local
undertaker."
(Jane Urquhart, The Whirlpool. McClelland & Stewart, 1986)
 
 "She usually rested her smile until late afternoon when her women friends dropped in and Miss Glory, the
cook, served them drinks on the closed-in porch."
(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1969)
 
 "For the next hour Shanna played, jumped waves, collected sand dollars, and built a forest of sand trees by
dribbling watery sand in cone shapes."
(Patricia H. Rushford, Sins of the Mother. Howard, 2003)
 
 "He shifted his gun so that the muzzle poked through the laurel at the front of the blind. She
waited, listened, watched, saw nothing."
(Stephen Goodwin, The Blood of Paradise. E.P. Dutton, 1979)
 
 "Like in many southern black families where education had been pushed, we had all studied,
learned, earned degrees, made money."
(bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem. Atria, 2003)
 
 The Forms of Regular Verbs
- "English verbs come in two flavors. Regular verbs have past tense forms that look like the verb with -ed on
the end: Today I jog, yesterday I jogged. They are monotonously predictable: jog-jogged, walk-walked, play-
played, kiss-kissed, and so on. (Regular nouns, whose plurals end in -s, such as cats and dogs, are similar.)
The list of regular verbs is open-ended. There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of regular verbs in
English (depending on how big a dictionary you consult), and new ones are being added to the language all
the time. When fax came into common parlance . . . no one had to inquire about its past-tense form;
everyone knew it was faxed. Similarly, when other words enter the language such as spam (flood with E-
mail), snarf (download a file), mung (damage something), mosh (dance in roughhouse fashion),
and Bork (challenge a political nominee for partisan reasons), the past-tense forms do not need separate
introductions: We all deduce that they are spammed, snarfed, munged, moshed, and Borked."
(Steven Pinker, Words and Rules. Basic, 1999)

- "The typical verb has an inflectional paradigm of consisting of either four or five forms. . . . Here are some
examples:
fix, fixes, fixed, fixed, fixing
grow, grows, grew, grown, growing
The first item in each of these lists (fix, grow) is the base form; the others are inflected. The actual changes from
the base form to the inflected forms are different in the two lists.

"The pattern of variation shown in the top list is that which occurs for the vast majority of English verbs. For
this reason it is known as the regular pattern, and the verbs that inflect like this are called regular verbs. In
the regular pattern, there is no difference between the third and the fourth items. . . .

"Regular verbs always form their inflected forms by means of adding the standard suffixes to an
unvarying stem. Further examples of regular verbs are:
try, tries, tried, tried, trying
skid, skids, skidded, skidded, skidding
Although there are various minor complexities about the spelling and the spoken forms of these words, they are
all perfectly predictable--for instance, the change from try to tri- or from skid to skidd-, or the different spoken
 P a g e | 10

forms of the suffixes in tries (with a /z/ sound) and looks (with an /s/ sound). These are automatic
adjustments of the basic elements.

"But irregular inflected forms are quite different. . . ."

(David J. Young, Introducing English Grammar. Hutchinson, 1984)
 
 Modern English Morphology
"Of the hundreds of strong (irregular) verbs in Old English, relatively few survive in Modern English. Of those
that do, many are now inflected as regular verbs. One tally suggests that of the 333 strong verbs of Old
English, only 68 continue as irregular verbs in Modern English. Among those that have become regular over
the centuries are burned, brewed, climbed, flowed, helped, and walked. By contrast, slightly more than a
dozen weak verbs have become irregular in the history of English, including dive, which has developed a
past-tense form dove alongside the historical form dived. You may also have heard drug for dragged, as its
use seems to be increasing. Among other verbs that are now irregular but were formerly regular are wear,
spit, and dig, with their newer past forms wore, spat, and dug."
(Edward Finegan, Language: Its Structure and Use, 6th ed. Wadsworth, 2012)

8- Irregular verbs
Definition
A verb that does not follow the usual rules for verb forms. Also known as a strong verb.
Verbs in English are irregular if they don't have a conventional -ed ending (such as asked or ended)
in the past tense and/or past participle forms. Contrast with Regular Verb.

According to the Longman Student Grammar (2002), the nine most common lexical verbs in English
are all irregular: say, get, go, know, think, see, make, come, and take.
Examples and Observations
 The bridge they built brought traffic in both directions.
 
 "Water slopping from the buckets froze on the feet as it fell."
(Sheila Watson, Deep Hollow Creek. McClelland & Stewart, 1992)
 
 "The shoes the slaves bought generally cost between $1.50 and $2.00."
(Ted Ownby, American Dreams in Mississippi. University of North Carolina Press, 1999)
 
 "He said Roadmap Jenkins got the good loops because he knew the yardage and read the break better than
anyone else."
(Bo Links, Riverbank Tweed and Roadmap Jenkins. Simon & Schuster, 2001)
 
 "Hearts were trumps. I stood, and made three to his nothing. I dealt; he begged; I gave him one,
and made three more."
(George H. Devol, Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi, 1887)
 
 "It was true, thought Miss Taylor, that the young nurses were less jolly since Sister Burstead had taken over
the ward."
(Muriel Spark, Memento Mori, 1959)

 
 180 Cussed Exceptions
"At first glance irregular verbs would seem to have no reason to live. Why should language have forms that
are just cussed exceptions to a rule? . . .

"Irregular forms are just words. If our language faculty has a knack for memorizing words, it should have no
inhibitions about memorizing past-tense forms at the same time. These are the verbs we call irregular, and
they are a mere 180 additions to a mental lexicon that already numbers in the tens or hundreds of
thousands."
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(Steven Pinker, Words and Rules. Basic, 1999)

 
 The Origin of Irregular Verbs
- irregular verbs . . . derive from the Old English period. At that time they were called strong and weak verbs
respectively. Strong verbs formed their past tense and past participle with an ablaut or vowel gradation (a
means of marking different functions of a word by varying the vowel sound in its base). Weak verbs formed
their past tense and past participle with an inflectional suffix, that is, a {-d} or {-t} suffix. With the loss of
inflections during the Middle English period, all new verbs took on the weak verb formation with an {-ed} or {-
t} in past forms. This weak formation soon became the norm for what we now refer to as English regular
verbs; strong verbs became irregular verbs."
(Bernard O'Dwyer, Modern English Structures, 2nd ed. Broadview Press, 2006)

- "In Old English there were over 300 [irregular verbs] (Baugh and Cable 1978), which fell into seven
relatively clear-cut classes; in modern English there are roughly half that number, in classes which overlap
and have deviant internal groups, and in addition, a number of weak verbs have joined the class of irregular
verbs. The Comprehensive Grammar of English (1985) presents seven classes of irregular verbs, five of
them with subgroups. The total membership of the modern irregular verb system is a question of criteria,
depending on whether you include
i) verbs which are conjugated both regularly and irregularly
ii) verbs which are prefixed or compounded forms of monomorphemic irregular verbs
iii) verbs which fall into the category of 'old-fashioned' or 'archaic' English
To provide maximum help--and to avoid prejudging such issues--the Comprehensive Grammar(QGLS) presents
a list of 267 irregular verbs, but it shrinks to about 150 if you apply all three criteria just mentioned."
(Pam Peters, "American and British Influence in Australian Verb Morphology." Creating and Using English
Language Corpora, ed. by Udo Fries et al. Rodopi, 1994)
 
 The Future of Irregular Verbs
"Do irregular verbs have a future? At first glance, the prospects do not seem good. Old English had more
than twice as many irregular verbs as we do today. As some of the verbs became less common, like cleave-
clove, abide-abode, and geld-gelt, children failed to memorize their irregular forms and applied the -ed rule
instead (just as today children are apt to say winded and speaked). The irregular forms were doomed for
these children's children and for all subsequent generations (though some of the dead irregulars have left
souvenirs among the English adjectives, like cloven, cleft, shod, gilt, and pent).

"Not only is the irregular class losing members by emigration, it is not gaining new ones by immigration.
When new verbs enter English via onomatopoeia (to ding, to ping), borrowings from other languages
(deride and succumb from Latin), and conversions from nouns (fly out), the regular rule has first dibs on
them. The language ends up with dinged, pinged, derided, succumbed, and flied out, not dang, pang,
derode, succame, or flew out.

"But many of the irregulars can sleep securely, for they have two things on their side. One is their sheer
frequency in the language. The ten commonest verbs in English (be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come,
see, and get) are all irregular, and about 70% of the time we use a verb, it is an irregular verb. And children
have a wondrous capacity for memorizing words; they pick up a new one every two hours, accumulating
60,000 by high school. Eighty irregulars are common enough that children use them before they learn to
read, and I predict they will stay in the language indefinitely."
(Steven Pinker, quoted by Lewis Burke Frumkes in Favorite Words of Famous People. Marion Street Press,
2011)
 
 A New Strong Verb in English
"The magazine Ozwords published by the Australian National Dictionary Centre has confirmed something
that I've suspected for some time--snuck as the past tense of sneak is now more usual than sneaked. . . . It is
always good news to hear of a successful new strong verb in English! . . .

"Fewer than 60 of the original 350 strong verbs remain--and even this very small number includes many
rather dodgy ones like glide/glode, beseech/besaught, cleave/cleft/cloven, beget/begat/begotten,
chide/chid/chidden, slay/slew/slain and smite/smote/smitten. Hardly part of a Modern English
speaker's active vocabulary! So you can see that a new strong verb like sneak/snuck is a cause for
celebration--that is, if you are worried about the extinction of forms like glide/glode."
 P a g e | 12

(Kate Burridge, Gift of the Gob: Morsels of English Language History. HarperCollins Australia, 2011)
 
 The Lighter Side of Irregular Verbs
"A boy who swims may say he swum,
But milk is skimmed and seldom skum,
And nails you trim; they are not trum.

"When words you speak, these words are spoken,

But a nose is tweaked and can't be twoken.
And what you seek is seldom soken.

"If we forget, then we've forgotten,

But things we wet are never wotten,
And houses let cannot be lotten.

"The things one sells are always sold,

But fog dispelled are not dispold,
And what you smell is never smold.

"When young, a top you oft saw spun,

But did you see a grin ever grun,
Or a potato neatly skun?"
(anonymous, "Variable Verbs" or "Verbs Is Funny")
Pronunciation: i-REG-u-lur verb
Also Known As: strong verbs

9- Transitive verbs

Definition
In English grammar, a transitive verb is a verb that takes an object (a direct object and sometimes
also an indirect object). Contrast with intransitive verb.
Many verbs have both a transitive and an intransitive function, depending on how they are used.
The verb break, for instance, sometimes takes a direct object ("Rihanna breaks my heart") and
sometimes does not ("When I hear your name, my heart breaks").
Etymology
From the Latin, "to go across"
 
Examples and Observations
 Our goalie missed the ball.
 
 The princess kissed a frog.
 
 Benjamin bought a zoo.
 
 "I know the muffin man."
(Lord Farquaad, Shrek, 2001)
 
 "We lost a daughter but gained a meathead."
(Archie Bunker in All in the Family, 1971)
 
 "Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory."
(George Santayana, The Life of Reason)
 
 "I punched Mickey Mantle in the mouth."
(Cosmo Kramer, Seinfeld)
 
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 "A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it."

(Sir Thomas Beecham)
 
 The Commonly Confused Verbs Lay and Lie
"There have been some difficulties with grammar since I last wrote. Lay is a transitive verb (I laydown a
case of claret every month; she laid the table), lie an intransitive one (he lies over there; she lay in bed until
noon). Do not confuse them."
(Simon Heffer, "Style Notes 28: February 12, 2010." The Daily Telegraph)
 
 Transitive and Intransitive Uses of Verbs
"More exactly, we should talk about transitive or intransitive uses of certain verbs, as a great many verbs
can be used in English both transitively and intransitively. Land is transitive in The pilot landed the plane
safely, but intransitive in The plane landed. Carry is transitive in They carried backpacks, but it has an
intransitive use in His voice carries well (= 'projects')."
(Angela Downing, English Grammar: A University Course. Routledge, 2006)
 
 Subtypes of Transitive Verbs
"Among transitive verbs there are three sub-types: monotransitive verbs have only a direct
object, ditransitive verbs have a direct object and an indirect or benefactive object. Complex-transitive
verbs have a direct object and an object attribute. . . .
 
 monotransitive: He bought a book.
 ditransitive: He gave her the book.
 complex-transitive: She found the book interesting."
(Marjolyn Verspoor and Kim Sauter, English Sentence Analysis. John Benjamins, 2000)
10- Intransitive verbs

 Definition:
 In English grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb (such as laugh) that does not take a direct
object. Contrast with transitive verb.
 Many verbs have both a transitive and an intransitive function, depending on how they are
used. The verb write, for instance, sometimes takes a direct object ("Shyla writes an essay
every week") and sometimes does not ("Shyla writes well").
Etymology
From the Latin, "not passing across"
 
Examples and Observations
 "My little mother . . . saw me and fainted."
(Maya Angelou, Mom & Me & Mom. Random House, 2013)
 
 "Fern had not arrived for her usual visit."
(E.B. White, Charlotte's Web. Harper, 1952)
 
 "It rains, the leaves tremble."
(Quoted by Rabindranath Tagore in The Religion of Man, 1930)
 
 "We must have the courage to be patient. . . . If you fell down yesterday, stand up to-day."
(H.G. Wells, The Anatomy of Frustration, 1936)
 
 "Overhead the swallows of Sarlat swooped and dove around the medieval houses."
(Fenton Johnson, Geography of the Heart. Washington Square, 1996)
 
 "Sometimes imagination pounces; mostly it sleeps soundly in the corner, purring."
(Attributed to Leslie Grimutter)
 
 "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk."
 P a g e | 14

(John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale")

 
 "I cut down trees,
I skip and jump,
I like to press wild flowers."
(Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Fred Tomlinson, "The Lumberjack Song." Monty Python's Flying Circus,
1969)
 
 "The woman with the short, up curling hair slept in a twisted sideways heap."
(Martha Gelhorn, "Miami-New York." The Atlantic Monthly, 1953)
 
 The Difference Between Intransitive and Transitive Verbs
"Most people already know something about verb constructions in the form of a dim memory of the distinction
between intransitive and transitive verbs. Intransitive verbs like snore appear without a direct object, as
in Max snored; it sounds odd to say Max snored a racket. Transitive verbs like sprain require a direct object,
as in Shirley sprained her ankle; it sounds odd to say Shirley sprained."
(Stephen Pinker, The Stuff of Thought. Viking, 2007)
 
 Intransitive Complementation
"Some verbs are complete in themselves and do not require any further elements to make their meaning
complete: although there may be further elements in the sentence, these are not essential. This is
called intransitive complementation. It involves verbs such as: appear, arrive, begin, break, come, cough,
decrease, die, disappear, drown, fall, go, happen, increase, laugh, lie(tell an untruth), matter, rain, rise,
sneeze, snow, stop, swim, wait, work."
(Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press, 2006)
 
 The Intransitive Use of Be
"Intransitive verbs are verbs that do not take an object or subject attribute in the sentence. Also note that
the verb be, when followed by an adverbial expressing place or time, is used as an intransitive verb.
 He is running.
 He is reading.
 He is turning around.
 He is in London at the moment."
(Marjolyn Verspoor and Kim Sauter, English Sentence Analysis. John Benjamins, 2000)
 

Phrasal verbs
Definition
A phrasal verb is a type of compound verb made up of (1) a verb(usually one of action or
movement) and (2) a prepositional adverb--also known as an adverbial particle. Phrasal verbs are
sometimes called two-part verbs (e.g., take off and leave out) or three-part verbs (e.g., look up
to and look down on).
There are hundreds of phrasal verbs in English, many of them (such as tear off, run out [of], and pull
through) with multiple meanings. Indeed, as linguist Angela Downing points out, phrasal verbs are
"one of the most distinctive features of present-day informal English, both in their abundance and in
their productivity" (English Grammar: A University Course, 2014). Phrasal verbs often appear
in idioms.
According to Logan Pearsall Smith in Words and Idioms (1925), the term phrasal verb was
introduced by Henry Bradley, senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Examples and Observations
 "What you can't get out of, get into wholeheartedly."
(Mignon McLaughlin, The Complete Neurotic's Notebook. Castle Books, 1981)
 
 "Put out the light, and then put out the light."
(William Shakespeare, Othello)
 
 P a g e | 15

 "I never truckled; I never took off the hat to Fashion and held it out for pennies. By God, I told them the truth."
(Frank Norris, Responsibilities of the Novelist, 1902)
 
 "Clots of excited children egged each other on, egged on their parents, egged on the blue-haired ladies and
the teenage lovers and janitor who put down his mop to play."
(K.C. Cole, Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the World He Made Up.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009)
 
 "Major Major had never played basketball or any other game before, but his great, bobbing height and
rapturous enthusiasm helped make up for his innate clumsiness and lack of experience."
(Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961)
 
 The Semantic Coherence of Phrasal Verbs
"Like compounds, phrasal verbs have semantic coherence, evidenced by the fact that they are sometimes
replaceable by single Latinate verbs, as in the following:
 
 break out -- erupt, escape
 count out -- exclude
 think up -- imagine
 take off -- depart, remove
 work out -- solve
 put off -- delay
 egg on -- incite
 put out -- extinguish
 put off -- postpone
Furthermore, the meaning of the combination of verb and particle in the phrasal verb may beopaque, that is,
not predictable from the meaning of the parts."
(Laurel J. Brinton, The Structure of Modern English: A Linguistic Introduction. John Benjamins, 2000)
 
 Phrasal Verbs With Up
Phrasal verbs with up have filled a wide variety of roles in both British and American English. Up gets used
for literal upward movement (lift up, stand up) or more figuratively to indicate greater intensity (stir up, fire up)
or completion of an act (drink up, burn up). It’s particularly handy for blunt imperatives calling for resolute
action: think of wake up!, grow up!, hurry up! and put up or shut up!"
(Ben Zimmer, "On Language: The Meaning of ‘Man Up.'" The New York Times Magazine, September 5,
2010)
 
 The Difference Between Phrasal Verbs and Prepositional Verbs
"A phrasal verb differs from a sequence of a verb and a preposition (a prepositional verb) in [these]
respects. Here call up is a phrasal verb, while call on is only a verb plus a preposition:
 
1. The particle in a phrasal verb is stressed: They called up the teacher, but not *They
called on the teacher.
2. The particle of a phrasal verb can be moved to the end: They called the teacher up, but not
*They called the teacher on.
3. The simple verb of a phrasal verb may not be separated from its particle by an adverb: *They
called early up the teacher is no good, but They called early on the teacher is fine."
(R.L. Trask, Dictionary of English Grammar. Penguin, 2000)
 
Also Known As: compound verb, verb-adverb combination, verb-particle combination, two-part
verb, three-part verb

Prepositional verbs
Definition
A prepositional verb is an idiomatic expression that combines a verb and a preposition to make a
new verb with a distinct meaning. Some examples of prepositional verbs in English are care for,
long for, apply for, approve of, add to, resort to, result in, count on, and deal with.
 P a g e | 16

The preposition in a prepositional verb is generally followed by a noun or pronoun, and thus

prepositional verbs are transitive.
Examples and Observations
 "God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests
and floods. But he cannot save them from fools."
(John Muir, "The American Forests." The Atlantic Monthly, 1897)
 "The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared
about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back."
(Steve Garvey)
 
 "I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers."
(Mahatma Gandhi)
 
 Prepositional verbs consist of a transitive verb plus a preposition with which it is closely associated.
 He stared at the girl.
 She finally decided on the blue car.
Prepositional verbs do not take the particle movement rule. The verb and the following preposition can be
separated by an adverb, and the preposition can precede a relative pronoun and appear at the beginning of
a wh- question.
 He stared intently at the girl.
 The girl at whom he was staring was strikingly beautiful.
 At whom was he staring?
(Ron Cowan, The Teacher's Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press, 2008)

 
 Pronouncing Prepositional Verbs
"A prepositional verb consists of a verb plus a particle which is clearly a preposition: for example, look at,
send for, rely on. These are mostly lexically singly stressed, with a primary stress going on the verb.
Thus look at has the same stress pattern as edit or borrow. The second element, the preposition, being
unstressed, does not get accented (unless for contrastive focus)."
(John Christopher Wells, English Intonation. Cambridge University Press, 2006)
 
 The Meanings of Prepositional Verbs 
"It is not difficult to find a trio of sentences, one illustrating a phrasal verb, one a prepositional verb and one
a sequence of verb plus prepositional phrase:
The pilot flew in the plane.
The sparrow flew in the plane.
The passenger flew in the plane.
The last of these is a sequence of verb and preposition, merely indicating where it was that the passenger did his
flying. It is no different in kind from The passenger slept in the plane. Admittedly the prepositional verb here
would more naturally contain into--The sparrow flew into the plane, but there are other possible contrasts with
other prepositions:
We walked under the trees.
This can either mean that we walked to a place under the trees (prepositional verb) or that we did our walking
under the trees (verb plus preposition)."
(F.R. Palmer, The English Verb. Routledge, 1987)
 
 The Difference Between Phrasal Verbs and Prepositional Verbs
"There are a number of syntactic criteria you can use for distinguishing phrasal verbs from prepositional
verbs:
1. in transitive phrasal verbs, the particle is movable, but the preposition in a prepositional verb is
not;
2. the NP is the object of the verb in phrasal verbs rather than of the preposition;
3. in both transitive and intransitive phrasal verbs, the particle carries stress, as in She took the
cap off or The plane took off, while prepositions are unstressed, as in We knocked on the
door.
4. adverbials cannot intervene between the verb and the particle whereas they can between the
verb and the preposition, *looked quickly up the information, but looked quickly into the oven.
(Laurel J. Brinton, The Structure of Modern English: A Linguistic Introduction. John Benjamins, 2000)
 P a g e | 17

Aspect

Definition
In English grammar, aspect is a verb form (or category) that indicates time-related characteristics,
such as the completion, duration, or repetition of an action. (Compare and contrast with tense.)
Adjective: aspectual.
The two primary aspects in English are the perfect (sometimes called perfective) and
the progressive (also known as the continuous form). As illustrated below, these two aspects may
be combined to form the perfect progressive.
In English, aspect is expressed by means of particles, separate verbs, and verb phrases.
Etymology
From the Latin, "how [something] looks"
 
Examples and Observations
 Perfect Aspect
The perfect aspect describes events occurring in the past but linked to a later time, usually the present. The
perfect aspect is formed with has, have, or had + the past participle. It occurs in two forms:
Perfect Aspect, Present Tense:
"History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people,
because they created."
(William Morris, The Water of the Wondrous Isles, 1897)

Perfect Aspect, Past Tense:

"At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance,
especially if one had no choice."
(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969)
 Progressive Aspect
The progressive aspect usually describes an event that takes place during a limited time period. The
progressive aspect is made up of a form of be + the -ing form of the main verb.
Progressive Aspect, Present Tense:
"She's loyal and is trying to wear her thin flippy hair in cornrows."
(Carolyn Ferrell, "Proper Library," 1994)

Progressive Aspect, Past Tense:

"I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything."
(Steven Wright)
 The Difference Between Tense and Aspect
"Traditionally . . . both aspects [perfect and progressive] are treated as part of the tense system in English,
and mention is made of tenses such as the present progressive (e.g. We are waiting), the present perfect
progressive (e.g. We have been waiting), and the past perfect progressive (e.g. We had been waiting), with
the latter two combining two aspects. There is a distinction to be made, however, between tense and aspect.
Tense is concerned with how time is encoded in the grammar of English, and is often based
on morphological form (e.g. write, writes, wrote); aspect is concerned with the unfolding of a situation, and in
English is a matter of syntax, using the verb be to form the progressive, and the verb have to form the
perfect. For this reason combinations like those above are nowadays referred to as constructions (e.g.
the progressive construction, the present perfect progressive construction)."
(Bas Aarts, Sylvia Chalker, and Edmund Weiner, Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, 2nd ed. Oxford
University Press, 2014)
 
 Present Perfect Progressive and Past Perfect Progressive
"The perfect aspect most often describes events or states taking place during a preceding time.
The progressive aspect describes an event or state of affairs in progress or continuing. Perfect and
progressive aspect can be combined with either present or past tense. . . .
 P a g e | 18

"Verb phrases can be marked for both aspects (perfect and progressive) at the same time:
 
 present perfect progressive:
God knows how long I've been doing it. Have I been talking out loud?
 past perfect progressive:
He had been keeping it in a safety deposit box at the Bank of America.
For months she had been waiting for that particular corner location.
The perfect progressive aspect is rare, occurring usually in the past tense in fiction. It combines the meaning
of the perfect and the progressive, referring to a past situation or activity that was in progress for a period of
time."
(Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, and Geoffrey Leech, Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written
English. Longman, 2002)

Mood
Definition
In grammar, mood is the quality of a verb that conveys the writer's attitude toward a subject.
There are three major moods in English: (1) the indicative mood is used to make factual statements
or pose questions, (2) the imperative mood to express a request or command, and (3) the (rarely
used) subjunctive mood to show a wish, doubt, or anything else contrary to fact.
Examples and Observations
 indicative mood
"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering--and it's all over much too soon."
(Woody Allen)
 imperative mood
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
(President John F. Kennedy)
 subjunctive mood
"If I were rich, I'd have the time that I lack
To sit in the synagogue and pray."
(from Fiddler on the Roof)
 Minor Moods in English
"[In addition to the three major moods of English] there are also minor moods, exemplified by the following
examples:
 
 Tag declarative
You've been drinking again, haven't you.
 Tag imperative
Leave the room, will you!
 Pseudo-imperative
Move and I'll shoot!
Move or I'll shoot!
 Alternative questions
Does John resemble his father or his mother? (with rising intonation on father and falling intonation
on mother
 Exclamative
What a nice day!
 Optative
May he rest in peace.
 "One more" sentence
One more beer and I'll leave.
 Curse
You pig, bag of wind, . . .!
The distinction between major and minor mood is not clear-cut, but intuitively minor moods (1) are highly
restricted in their productivity, (2) are peripheral to communication, (3) are probably low in their relative
frequency of occurrence, and (4) vary widely across languages."
(A. Akmajian, R. Demers, A. Farmer, and R. Harnish, Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and
Communication. MIT Press, 2001)
Pronunciation: mood
 P a g e | 19

Also Known As: mode

Imperative mood
Definition
In English grammar, the imperative mood is the form of the verb that makes direct commands and
requests, such as "Sit still" and "Count your blessings."
The imperative mood uses the zero infinitive form, which (with the exception of be) is the same as
the second person in the present tense.
There are three major moods in English: the indicative mood is used to make factual statements or
pose questions, the imperative mood to express a request or command, and the (rarely
used)subjunctive mood to show a wish, doubt, or anything else contrary to fact.
Etymology
From the Latin, "command"
 
Examples
 "Save Ferris."
(Slogan in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986)
 
 "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
(Philo of Alexandria)
 
 "Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do,
every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of
unanimity."
(Christopher Morley's final message to friends, colleagues, and readers, published in The New York
Times after his death on March 28, 1957)
 
 "Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your own wings on the way down."
(Ray Bradbury, Brown Daily Herald, March 24, 1995)
 
 "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."
(attributed to President Abraham Lincoln)
 
 "Roar, roar, roar, Henderson-Sungo. Do not be afraid. Let go of yourself. Snarl greatly. Feel the lion."
(Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King. Viking, 1959)
 
 "Touch the great artery. Feel it bound like a deer in the might of its lightness, and know the thunderless boil
of the blood. Lean for a bit against this bone. It is the only memento you will leave to this earth. Its tacitness
is everlasting. In the hush of the tissue wait with me for the shaft of pronouncement. Press your ear against
this body, the way you did when you were a child holding a seashell and heard faintly the half-remembered,
longed-for sea."
(Richard Selzer, "The Surgeon as Priest." Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery. Simon & SChuster,
1976)
 
 "Let the river rock you like a cradle
Climb to the treetops, child, if you're able
Let your hands tie a knot across the table.
Come and touch the things you cannot feel.
And close your fingertips and fly where I can't hold you
Let the sun-rain fall and let the dewy clouds enfold you
And maybe you can sing to me the words I just told you,
If all the things you feel ain't what they seem.
And don't mind me 'cause I ain't nothin' but a dream.
(lyrics by Jerry Merrick, sung by Richie Havens, "Follow")
 
 P a g e | 20

 "Shut up, Brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-tip!"

(Homer Simpson of The Simpsons)
 
 "Never give in in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--
never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Neveryield to the
apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
(Winston Churchill)
 
 "Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights.
Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight."
(Bob Marley, "Get Up, Stand Up!")
 
 "Just do it."
(Nike advertising slogan)
 
 "Come in, then. Don't stand staring. Close that door quick! Hustle! Don't scrape your feet on the floor. Try to
look intelligent. Don't gape."
(P.G. Wodehouse, Something Fresh, 1915)
 
Pronunciation: im-PAR-uh-tiv mood

Subjunctive mood
Definition
In English grammar, the subjunctive is the mood of a verb expressing wishes, stipulating demands,
or making statements contrary to fact.
The "present" subjunctive is the bare form of a verb (that is, a verb with no ending). It does not
show agreement with its subject. (Example: "I strongly recommend that he retire.") Two patterns of
the present subjunctive are generally recognized:
Etymology
From the Latin, "subjoin, bind, subordinate"
 
Guidelines for Using the Subjunctive
The subjunctive may be used in the following circumstances in formal writing.
1. Contrary-to-fact clauses beginning with if:
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
(Abraham Lincoln)
2. Contrary-to-fact clauses expressing a wish:
"At that moment, I had the most desperate wish that she were dead."
(Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich in Presumed Innocent, 1990)
3. That clauses after verbs such as ask, demand, insist, propose, request, and suggest:
"I demand that he leave at once."
4. Statements of necessity:
"It's necessary that she be in the room with you."
5. Certain fixed expressions:
as it were, be that as it may be, far be it from me, heaven forbid, if need be, so be it, suffice it to say
 
Additional Examples and Observations
 "I wouldn't bring up Paris if I were you. It's poor salesmanship."
(Humphrey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca, 1942)
 "Even the dog, an animal used to bizarre surroundings, developed a strange, off-register look, as if he were badly
printed in overlapping colors."
(S.J. Perelman, quoted by Roy Blount, Jr., in Alphabet Juice, 2008)
 "Well sir, all I can say is if I were a bell, I'd be ringing!"
(Frank Loesser, "If I Were a Bell." Guys and Dolls, 1950)
 "If music be the food of love, play on."
(William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)
 P a g e | 21

 "The public be damned."
(William Henry Vanderbilt, Oct. 8, 1882)
 "If I see one more shirttail flapping while I'm captain of this ship, woe betide the sailor; woe betidethe OOD; and
woe betide the morale officer. I kid you not."
(Humphrey Bogart as Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, 1954)
 If there were a death penalty for corporations, Enron may have earned it.
 "In the night he awoke and held her tight as though she were all of life and it was being taken away from him."
(Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, 1940)
 
 The Were-Subjunctive (Irrealis Were)
- "Teachers call this by a formidable word, subjunctive, meaning lacking in reality. What it refers to is actually the Fairy
Tale Syndrome. If I were a rich man, could be such a mood. It refers to something that is not possible. If the possibility
exists, the sentence would read: If I was a rich man."
(Val Dumond, Grammar for Grownups. HarperCollins, 1993)

- "Unlike the mandative subjunctive, the were-subjunctive in counterfactual if-clauses is a recessive feature of

standard written English. It is not being replaced by a modal but, instead, byindicative was. Would + be instead
of were in counterfactual if-clauses is still largely confined to informal, spoken English. It is meeting with
strong prescriptive reaction, especially in the US. One side-effect of this, so to speak, is hypercorrect use of were in
non-counterfactuals."
(Geoffrey Leech, Marianne Hundt, Christian Mair, and Nicholas Smith, Change in Contemporary English: A
Grammatical Study. Cambridge University Press, 2012)
 
 Advice
- "As with the misuse of whom instead of who, . . . using the subjunctive wrongly is worse than not using it all, and will
make you look pompous and silly."
(David Marsh and Amelia Hodsdon, Guardian Style, 3rd ed. Guardian Books, 2010)

- "The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is put it out of its misery as soon as possible."
(Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook, 1949)
 
 The Lighter Side of Subjunctives
Detective Sergeant Lewis: All that stonework, must take months to do the pointing.
Chief Inspector Morse: You're not a bloody mason, are you?
Detective Sergeant Lewis: No such luck. I might have been a Chief Inspector by now if I was.
Chief Inspector Morse: Were, Lewis, if you were. You'll never get on if you can't master yoursubjunctives. Keep
touching your forelock, we may be back in Oxford before lunch.
Detective Sergeant Lewis: Shouldn't that be might?
(Kevin Whately and John Thaw in "Ghost in the Machine." Inspector Morse, 1987)

Dancer: [reading a book titled English Grammar and Usage] Julie, you take this whole business about the subjunctive. I
don't know.
Julian: All right, Dancer, all right. What's so difficult about the subjunctive?
Dancer: Well, you take this, for instance: "If I was you." You know? That's all wrong. It says here, "If I were you." How
far can you go with this speech stuff?
Julian: It sets you up, Dancer. It sets you up. Remember that. How many characters do you know hang around street
corners can say, "If I were you"? How many, huh?
Dancer: If I were you. If I were you.
(Eli Wallach and Robert Keith in The Lineup, 1958)
 
Pronunciation: sub-JUNG-tif mood

Formulaic subjunctive
Definition:
 P a g e | 22

A set expression in the subjunctive mood (such as God save the Queen!), usually found in

an independent clause. The formulaic subjunctive generally conveys the meaning of letor may.
Like the mandative subjunctive, the formulaic subjunctive consists of the base form of the verb. It is
distinctive only in the third-person singular of the present tense. (In other words, the -s ending is
omitted.)
Examples and Observations:
 "Sarita draped the belt around her neck, as if to signal that the storm had receded. 'Heaven help us all,' she
said quietly. 'Heaven help us all.'"
(April Sinclair, I Left My Back Door Open. HarperCollins, 1999)
 "His mother might say, 'Like father, like son,' but Sambal regularly earned a hundred and fifty to two hundred
rupees. No robbery or petty thieving--heaven forbid!"
(Saroj Pathak, "Saugandh (The Vow)." Women Writing in India: The Twentieth Century, ed. by Susie Tharu
and K. Lalita. Feminist Press, 1993)
 "By my dispatch of the 27th of September the Duke of Wellington was instructed to declare, that 'to any
interference by force or menace on the part of the allies against Spain, come what may, His Majesty will not
be party.'"
(George Caning, "Negotiations Relative to Spain," April 30, 1823. Selected Speeches on British Foreign
Policy, 1738-1914, ed. by Edgar R. Jones, 1914)
 "Perish the thought! that in our bosoms never
Should wake those airy raptures that were ours
Ere fled the freshness of our youth forever--
When joy was crowned with flowers;"
(William H. C. Hosmer, "The Ideal")
 "A Tombstone lawyer was pleading his case to a jury in Judge Wells Spicer's court when a burro beneath the
window started braying loudly. Lawyer Marcus A. Smith arose and gravely said, 'If it please the court, I object
to the two attorneys speaking at the same time.'"
(Wayne Erbsen, Outlaw Ballads, Legends & Lore. Native Ground Music, 1996)
 Formulaic Subjunctives in Legal English
"In legal usage, the formulaic subjunctive is still very much alive, as in the frequent phrase know all men by
these presents. It is even more common in the passive. Some examples are be it known and be it
remembered. Another illustration is the British enactment clause, which is found at the beginning of all
statutes:
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the
same. . . .
This clause illustrates not just the subjunctive, but several other common features of legal English: French word
order (Lords Spiritual and Temporal), formal or pompous language (Queen's most Excellent Majesty),
conjoined phrases (by and with, advice and consent), odd word order (in Parliament assembled), and use
of same as a pronoun. Although a paragon of legalese, it also has a majestic flair that would be hard to
achieve with more banal phraseology. Phrases such as this one surely go far in explaining why lawyers are
so reluctant to give up their idiosyncratic language."
(Peter M. Tiersma, Legal Language. The University of Chicago Press, 1999)
Also Known As: frozen form

Mandative subjunctive

Definition:
The use of the subjunctive mood in a subordinate clause that follows an expression of command,
demand, or recommendation.
Like the formulaic subjunctive, the mandative subjunctive consists of the base form of the verb. It is
distinctive only in the third-person singular of the present tense. (In other words, the -s ending is
omitted.)
In the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (1994), Chalker and Weiner note that the mandative
subjunctive "has made a considerable comeback in British English in recent years, probably under
American influence." Yet in all varieties of English, the mandative subjunctive is far more common in
writing than in speech.
 P a g e | 23

Examples and Observations:

 "High school counselors recommended she go to vocational school instead of college, even though she was
in the National Honor Society."
(Sylvia Mendoza, The Book of Latina Women. Adams Media, 2004)
 "[T]he Judge was chipper as he insisted that the Carrot Orange Bisque be the first course for the anniversary
celebration."
(Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Diana von Welanetz Wentworth, Chicken Soup for the Soul
Cookbook. HCI Books, 1995)
 "Dr. King felt his training demanded that he bring to the Dexter Avenue congregation the greatest social
gospel and action program it had ever experienced."
(Ralph Abernathy, quoted by David Garrow in Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference. HarperCollins, 1986)
 "'But I've never even tried to write a story,' Ellison protested when Wright suggested he take upwriting."
(Ralph Ellison, quoted by Timothy Parrish in Ralph Ellison and the Genius of America. University of
Massachusetts Press, 2012)
 Regional Trends in the Use of the Mandative Subjunctive
"Divergent regional trends in the use of the subjunctive have been noted by a number of modern English
grammarians. Use of the mandative subjunctive, i.e. after expressions of demand, recommendation,
intention, etc., seems to have varied considerably. AmE is strongly inclined to use the mandative subjunctive,
as in I recommend that he talk to a specialist, while BrE prefers theperiphrastic construction with the modal
auxiliary should, as in I recommend that he should talk to a specialist.

"Australian use of the mandative subjunctive lies somewhere between that of AmE and BrE, in comparative
corpus data used by Peters (1998a)."
(Peter Collins and Pam Peters, "Australian English: Morphology and Syntax." A Handbook of Varieties of
English: A Multi-Media Reference Tool, ed. by Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider. Mouton de Gruyter,
2005)
 The Future of the Mandative Subjunctive [MS] in World English
"[T]he future of MS still looks rather constrained. It is still largely confined to institutional kinds of speech, and
not readily used in ordinary conversation. The linguistic constraints on its use include the fact that the suasive
verbs like demand which currently show the highest frequencies of MS also have rather specialized uses,
because of the unequal interpersonal relationship they presuppose, and discoursal settings in which they can
be used. Even where it is demonstrably still current usage, MS seems to be marked rather than stylistically
neutral. . . . Its popularity probably varies within particular English-speaking communities, which may lead to
declining use over the course of time."
(Pam Peters, "The Mandative Subjunctive in Spoken English." Comparative Studies in Australian and New
Zealand English: Grammar and Beyond, ed. by Pam Peters, Peter Collins, and Adam Smith. John
Benjamins, 2009)

Past subjunctive
Definition
Past subjunctive is a term in traditional grammar for the use of were in a clause that expresses an
unreal or hypothetical condition in present, past, or future time (for example, "If I were you . . .").
Also known as the "were-subjunctive" and the "irrealis were," the past subjunctive differs from the
past indicative only in the first- and third-person singular of the past tense of be. The past
subjunctive is primarily used in subordinate clauses that begin with (as) if orthough.
Examples and Observations
 "[Her eye] was prominent, and showed a great deal of the white, and looked as steadily, as unwinkingly, at
you as if it were a steel ball soldered in her head."
(Charlotte Brontë, Shirley, 1849)
 
 "If she were truly sorry or even not sure she was right, she might apologize, but in this case she'd be lying."
(Cliff Coon, The Mending String, 2004)
 
 "How can a person start off from Grand Isle to Mexico at a moment's notice, as if he were going over to
Klein's or to the wharf or down to the beach?"
(Kate Chopin, The Awakening, 1899)
 
 P a g e | 24

 "I always feel a little uneasy when I'm with Marie Strickland, though not uncomfortable enough to wish
she weren't here."
(P.D. James, The Murder Room, 2003)
 
 "Suppose he were to come back to Paris and challenge Bunny to a duel?"
(Upton Sinclair, Oil! 1927)
 
 "O would that she were here,
That fair and gentle thing,
Whose words are musical as strains
Breathed by the wind-harp's string."
(G.P. Morris, "Lines for Music")
 
 An Untensed Form
"The meaning of the past subjunctive is not factual but counterfactual (e.g. [ I wish] he were here;If I were
you . . .) or tentative (e.g. I would be surprised if he were to do that). . . .

"[T]he subjunctive were is not a relative tense form. Since, obviously, it is not an absolute tense form either
(i.e. it does not relate its situation to the temporal zero-point), it can only be treated as an 'untensed' form. In
this respect it resembles nonfinite verb forms, i.e. infinitives, participles and gerunds."
(Renaat Declerck, Susan Reed, and Bert Cappelle, The Grammar of the English Tense System: A
Comprehensive Analysis. Mouton de Gruyter, 2006)

 
 Formal Usage
"When the past subjunctive is used, a reference to a hypothetical or to a counterfactual situation is made,
which may lie in the present, the past or the future (Example 10):
(9) you could read page one-twenty-four, as if it were all simple past, right?
(MICASE LEL300SU076)

(10) [...] Jimmie wishes/wished/will wish his girlfriend were with him.

(example by Depraetere & Reed 2006: 271)
The form were is used especially following constructions that express volition, such as the verbs
wish and suppose (I wish he were here), the conjunctions as if, if only, as, though, whether (if I were you . . .),
and the phrases would rather and would that (would that he were still alive). In non-formal contexts, however,
the past form is often replaced by the past indicative was (I wish he was here) (Huddleston & Pullum 2002:
86-89; Quirk et al. 1985: 148; 1013), i.e. modal preterite. So the past subjunctive counts as the more formal
variant."
(Alexander Bergs and Lena Heine, "Mood in English." Mood in the Languages of Europe, ed. by Björn
Rothstein and Rolf Thieroff. John Benjamins, 2010)
 
 Correctness and Acceptability
"Acceptability is not absolute, but is a matter of degree; one expression may be more or less acceptable than
another. 'If I were in your shoes' may be judged more acceptable than 'If I was in your shoes,' but both are
considerably more acceptable than 'If we was in your shoes.' Moreover, acceptability is not abstract, but is
related to some group of people whose response it reflects."
(John Algeo and Thomas Pyles, The Origins and Development of the English Language, 6th ed. Wadsworth,
2010)
 
Optative
Definition:
A category of grammatical mood that expresses a wish, hope, or desire.
In English, sometimes the subjunctive form of the verb is used in optative expressions, such as
"God help us!"
Etymology:
From the Latin, "to wish"
 P a g e | 25

Examples and Observations:

 "'May the best rat win!' bellowed an inebriated Tretiak, and a dozen large rats began racing on a neon-lit
mini-track in Tretiak's private club."
(Burl Barer, The Saint. Pocket Books, 1997)
 Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun,
Long may you run."
(Neil Young, "Long May You Run." Long May You Run, 1976)
 "Adieu, my dearest friend--may you be happy!--and then your Clarissa cannot be wholly miserable."
(Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, 1748)
 "Would that he were gone!"
(Fairy in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1594 or 1596)
 "May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung.
May you stay, forever young."
(Bob Dylan, "Forever Young." Planet Waves, 1974)
 Optative May
"Optative clauses express hopes and wishes . . .. This inverted construction with may generally belongs
to formal style, though it is also found in various fixed phrases such as May the best man win! or May you be
forgiven!"
(Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge
Univ. Press, 2002)
 "(I.181) a. May he not regret it! . . .
"(I.181) expresses the optative mood also associated with subjunctive idioms such as God save the
king! The former construction is not lexicalized or routinized to the extent of the latter, however. The
specialized mood interpretation of may is associated with 'inversion.' . . . Apart from in idioms there is
no morphological expression of optative mood in English.

"There is, however, a further optative expletion . . .:

Would that it would/were to rain.
But again this is apparently a dedicated optative form with no corresponding morphological expression. . . . It
is the whole expression that expresses optative mood."
(John M. Anderson, The Substance of Language: Morphology, Paradigms, and Periphrases. Oxford Univ.
Press, 2011)

Jussive
A type of clause (or a form of a verb) that expresses an order or command.
In Semantics (1977), John Lyons notes that the term "imperative sentence" is often "employed by
other writers in the broader sense that we have given here to 'jussive sentence'; and this can lead to
confusion" (p. 748). See Examples and Observations, below.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "command"
Examples and Observations:
 "Jussives include not only imperatives, as narrowly defined, but also related non-imperative clauses,
including some in subjunctive mood:
Be sensible.
You be quiet.
Everybody listen.
Let's forget it.
 P a g e | 26

Heaven help us.

It is important that he keep this a secret.
The term jussive is, however, used to some extent as a syntactic label, and in this use would not include
commands expressed as straight declaratives, e.g.
You will do what I say.
In popular grammars, where the term is not used, such structures would be dealt with under an expanded
imperative label and under subjunctives."
(Sylvia Chalker and Edmund Weiner, Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1994)
 "jussive
A term sometimes used in the grammatical analysis of verbs, to refer to a type of mood often equated with an
imperative (leave!), but in some languages needing to be distinguished from it. For example, in Amharic, a
jussive paradigm is used for wishes ('May God give you strength'), greetings, and certain other contexts, and
this is formally distinct from the imperative."
(David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 4th ed. Blackwell, 1997)
 "Imperatives constitute a subclass of a somewhat larger class of jussive clauses. . . . Non-imperative
jussives include main clauses like The devil take the hindmost, God save the queen, So be
it, and subordinate clauses like [It is essential] that he accompany her, [I insist] that they not be told. The
construction exemplified here is productive only in subordinate clauses: the main clauses are virtually
restricted to fixed expressions or formulae. Like imperatives they have a base form as first verb . . .. A
number of other relatively minor main clause constructions might be included in the jussive category: May
you be forgiven!, If that is what the premier intends, let him say so, and so on."
(Rodney Huddleston, English Grammar: An Outline. Cambridge University Press, 1988)
 "[John] Lyons [Semantics, 1977: 747] argues that the imperative can only be, strictly, second person, and
never third person (or first person). This may, however, be no more than a terminological issue, since first
and third person 'imperatives' are often simply called 'jussives.' Bybee (1985: 171) suggests that where
there is a full set of person-number forms the term 'optative' is used, but this is not entirely suitable in view of
the fact that the term is used traditionally for the 'optative' mood in Classical Greek (8.2.2). . . . The term
'Jussive' (plus Imperative) is preferred here."
(F. R. Palmer, Mood and Modality, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2001)

Serial verbs
Definition
In English grammar, serial verbs are verbs that occur together in a single verb phrase (e.g., "I'll run
go get a taxi") without a marker of coordination or subordination.
A serial verb construction (SVC) is one that contains two or more verbs, neither of which is an
auxiliary.
The term serial verb, notes Paul Kroeger, "has been used by different authors in slightly different
ways, and linguists sometimes disagree about whether a particular construction in a given language
is 'really' a serial verb or not" (Analyzing Syntax, 2004).
Serial verbs are more common in creoles and in certain dialects of English than in standard English.
Examples and Observations
 "How do you breathe? How do you dream? No one knows. But you come see me. Anytime. Mother Abagail
is what they call me. I'm the oldest woman in these parts, I guess, and I still make m'own biscuit. You come
see me anytime."
(Stephen King, The Stand. Doubleday, 1978)

 
 "Cassie, run go fetch that shirt for Meely."
(Ken Wells, Meely LaBauve. Random House, 2000)

 
 "Who will play with Jane? See the cat. It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play with Jane."
(Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970)

 
 "I hear tell lotta white folks up dere don't hold with slavery and sets us folk free."
(Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Doubleday, 1976)
 P a g e | 27

 
 "Some speakers find these [serial verb constructions] marginal, but they are well attested in both the BNC
[British National Corpus] and the COCA [Corpus of Contemporary American English].Serial verbs can also
occur in other constructions where a bare verb form is appropriate:
(5) She's the professor I want to go see.
Don't make me come get you!
They will come see me tomorrow.
Serial verbs are clearly monoclausal . ... However, there is other semantic and structural evidence that they are
not compound verbs.

"First, serial verbs do not consist of a head verb preceded by another verb expressing manner. In other
words, going is not a kind of seeing in example (5) . . .. Structurally, unlike verb-verb compounds, serial verbs
do not occur in any forms other than the bare form (which, of course, is also the imperative). . . . Verb-verb
compounds and serial verbs are two constructions that combine verbs into very 'tight' grammatical
constructions. They can be considered 'verb-combining' rather than 'clause-combining' constructions, since
the result is a single clause."
(Thomas E. Payne, Understanding English Grammar: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press,
2011)

 
 Serial Verbs in African-American Vernacular English
"AAVE is more like other varieties of American English with respect to constructions with fug [<for] and serial
verbs. It shares with Gullah such serial verb constructions as I asks him say . . . and Come play with us, in
which two verb phrases are sequenced without an intervening conjunction orcomplementizer."
(Salikoko S. Mufwene, "African-American English." The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume
6, ed. by John Algeo. Cambridge University Press, 2001)

 
 Serial Verbs in Creoles
"Series of adjacent verbs are frequently found in creoles. In some cases they look like English structures
without coordinating elements (especially in mesolects and acrolects), but basilectal sentences display a
distinctly different breakdown of the semantic structure of verbs. . . .
(57) samtain di bebi wan gu walk
sometimes the baby want go walk
'Sometimes the baby wants to walk'
(BelC, Escure, collected in 1999)

(58a) dey pas kum don dey me de meyt

they pass come down they PA IMPFV mate
(BelC, Escure, 1991: 183)"
(Geneviève Escure, "Belize and Other Central American Varieties: Morphology and Syntax." A Handbook of
Varieties of English, Volume 2, ed. by Bernd Kortmann. Walter de Gruyter, 2004)

Compound verbs
Definitions
(1) In English grammar, a compound verb is made up of two or more words that function as a
single verb. Conventionally, verb compounds are written as either one word ("to housesit") or two
hyphenated words ("to water-proof"). Also called a compound (or complex) predicate.
(2) Similarly, a compound verb can be a phrasal verb or a prepositional verb that behaves
either lexically or syntactically as a single verb. In such cases, a verb and its particle may be
separated by other words ("drop the essay off"). This structure is now more commonly known as
a multi-word verb.
(3) The term compound verb can also refer to a lexical verb along with its auxiliaries; in traditional
grammar, this is called a verb phrase.
Examples (Definition #1)
 "Television has, it would seem, an irresistible ability to brainwash and narcotize children, drawing them away
from other, more worthwhile activities and influences."
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(David Buckingham, "A Special Audience? Children and Television." A Companion to Television, ed. by
Janet Wasko. Blackwell, 2006)
 "After lunch Dos Passos and the Fitzgeralds, who had rented a scarlet touring car and chauffeur, house
hunted on Long Island."
(Sally Cline, Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise. Arcade, 2004)
 "Barely awake, he moved through the darkness, automatically went through the motions of emptying his
bladder, sleep-walked his way back through his familiar kingdom, and unthinkingly pushed open the bedroom
door."
(Olga Grushin, The Dream Life of Sukhanov. Penguin, 2007)
 Some studio owners use foam tiles, carpet, or egg boxes on the walls to sound-proof a room.
 "I pretended to windows hop, pausing in front of a little store jammed with racks of costume jewelry."
(Sophie Littlefield, Unforsaken. Delacorte Press, 2011)
 
Examples (Definition #2)
 "[Stella] broke off the engagement, and I got out the dinghy and rowed off."
(P.G. Wodehouse, "Rallying Around Old George")
 "I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty."
(President John Kennedy)
 "Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language."
(Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. Chatto and Windus, 1992)
 "I've just been informed that the witness Latour has done away with himself."
(Leo G. Carroll as Sir Joseph, The Paradine Case, 1947)
 "I put up with your obsessions. I even encourage them--for one reason. They save lives."
(Robert Leonard as Dr. James Wilson, "Here Kitty." House M.D., 2009)
 
Examples (Definition #3)
 "And then I was playing over and under and through all of this, and the pianist and bass were
playing somewhere else."
(Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography, with Quincy Troupe. Simon & Schuster, 1989)
 "Although all three musicians had been playing earlier that night, they had not been together."
(Erik Nisenson, Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation. Da Capo Press, 2000)
 "If White House officials had called reporters about Valerie Wilson after the Novak column, theywould have
been playing a rather bruising (and arguably unethical) game of hardball."
(Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War.
Crown Publishers, 2006)
 
Observations:
 Placement of Adverbs in Verb Phrases
- "Although most authorities squarely say that the best place for the adverb is in the midst of the verb phrase,
many writers nevertheless harbor a misplaced aversion, probably because they confuse a split verb phrase
with the split infinitive. H.W. Fowler explained long ago what writers still have problems understanding: 'When
an adverb is to be used with [a compound] verb, its normal place is between the auxiliary (or sometimes the
first auxiliary if there are two or more) and the rest. Not only is there no objection to thus splitting
a compound verb . . ., but any other position for the adverb requires special justification' (MEU1)."
(Bryan A. Garner, The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style. Oxford University Press, 2000)

- To stay within your daily calorie budget, you will probably decide to completely boycott certain foods.

- My sister has definitely been warned about talking to strangers.

Idioms
Definition
An idiom is a set expression of two or more words that means something other than
the literal meanings of its individual words. Adjective: idiomatic.

"Idioms are the idiosyncrasies of a language," says Christine Ammer. "Often defying the rules
 P a g e | 29

of logic, they pose great difficulties for non-native speakers" (The American Heritage Dictionary of
Idioms, 2013).
Etymology
From the Latin, "own, personal, private"
Examples and Observations
 "Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint."
(Don Marquis)
 
 "Fads are the kiss of death. When the fad goes away, you go with it."
(Conway Twitty)
 
 "We may have started by beating about the bush, but we ended by barking up the wrong tree."
(P. M. S. Hacker, Human Nature: The Categorial Framework. Wiley, 2011)
 
 "I worked the graveyard shift with old people, which was really demoralizing, because the old people didn't
have a chance in hell of ever getting out."
(Kate Millett)
 
 "Some of the places they used for repairs, Bill said, had taken to calling themselves 'auto restoration facilities'
and charging an arm and a leg."
(Jim Sterba, Frankie's Place: A Love Story. Grove, 2003)

 
 "If we could just agree to disagree and not get all bent out of shape. That was one of the main things we
decided in therapy.”
(Clyde Edgerton, Raney. Algonquin, 1985)

 
 "Chloe decided that Skylar was the big cheese. She called the shots and dominated the conversation."
(Jeanette Baker, Chesapeake Tide. Mira, 2004)

 
 "Anytime they came up short on food, they yanked one of the pigs out of the pen, slit its throat, and went on a
steady diet of pig meat."
(Jimmy Breslin, The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez. Three Rivers Press, 2002)

 
 "Mrs. Brofusem is prone to malapropisms and mangled idioms, as when she says she wishes to 'kill one bird
with two stones' and teases Mr. Onyimdzi for having a white girl 'in' (rather than 'up') his sleeve."
(Catherine M. Cole, Ghana's Concert Party Theatre. Indiana University Press, 2001)

 
 "'Just the normal filling for you today then?' Blossom enquires at her usual breakneck speed, blinking rapidly.
She's got one brown eye and one blue, suiting her quirky style. 'The ball's in your shoe!'

"The saying, of course, is the ball's in your court, but Blossom is always getting her idioms mixed up."
(Carla Caruso, Cityglitter. Penguin, 2012)
 
 Functions of Idioms
"People use idioms to make their language richer and more colorful and to convey subtle shades of meaning
or intention. Idioms are used often to replace a literal word or expression, and many times the idiom better
describes the full nuance of meaning. Idioms and idiomatic expressions can be more precise than the literal
words, often using fewer words but saying more. For example, the expression it runs in the family is shorter
and more succinct than saying that a physical or personality trait 'is fairly common throughout one's extended
family and over a number of generations.'"
(Gail Brenner, Webster's New World American Idioms Handbook. Webster's New World, 2003)
 
 Idioms and Culture
- "If natural language had been designed by a logician, idioms would not exist."
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(Philip Johnson-Laird, 1993)

- "Idioms, in general, are deeply connected to culture. . . . Agar (1991) proposes that biculturalism and
bilingualism are two sides of the same coin. Engaged in the intertwined process of culture change, learners
have to understand the full meaning of idioms."
(Sam Glucksberg, Understanding Figurative Language. Oxford University Press, 2001)
 
 Shakespeare's Idioms
"Shakespeare is credited with coining more than 2,000 words, infusing thousands more existing ones with
electrifying new meanings and forging idioms that would last for centuries. 'A fool's paradise,' 'at one fell
swoop,' 'heart's content,' 'in a pickle,' 'send him packing,' 'too much of a good thing,' 'the game is up,' 'good
riddance,' 'love is blind,' and 'a sorry sight,' to name a few."
(David Wolman, Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English
Spelling. Harper, 2010)
 
 Levels of "Transparency"
- "Idioms vary in 'transparency': that is, whether their meaning can be derived from the literal meanings of
the individual words. For example, make up [one's] mind is rather transparent in suggesting the meaning
'reach a decision,' while kick the bucket is far from transparent in representing the meaning 'die.'"
(Douglas Biber et al., Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Pearson, 2002)

- "The thought hit me that this was a pretty pathetic way to kick the bucket--being accidentally poisoned
during a photo shoot, of all things--and I started weeping at the idiocy of it all."
(Lara St. John)
 
 The Idiom Principle
"The observation that meanings are made in chunks of language that are more or less predictable, though
not fixed, sequences of morphemes leads [John] Sinclair [in Corpus Concordance Collocation, 1991] to an
articulation of the 'idiom principle.' He states the principle thus:
The principle of idiom is that a language user has available to him or her a large number of semi-
preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they might appear to be analysable into
segments (Sinclair 1991): 110)
The study of fixed phrases has a fairly long tradition . . ., but phrases are normally seen as outside the normal
organising principle of language. Here, Sinclair extends the notion of phraseology to encompass a great deal
more of language than it is commonly considered to encompass. At its strongest, we might say that all
senses of all words exist in and are identified by the sequences of morphemes in which they typically occur."
(Susan Hunston and Gill Francis, Pattern Grammar: A Corpus-Driven Approach to the Lexical Grammar of
English. John Benjamins, 2000)
 
 Modal Idioms
"Modal idioms are idiosyncratic verbal formations which consist of more than one word and which
have modal meanings that are not predictable from the constituent parts (compare the non-modalidiom kick
the bucket). Under this heading we include have got [to], had better/best, would rather/sooner/as soon,
and be [to]."
(Bas Aarts, Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 2011)

 
 The Lighter Side of Idioms
Kirk: If we play our cards right, we may be able to find out when those whales are being released.
Spock: How will playing cards help?
(Captain James T. Kirk and Spock in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986)
Cliché
Definition
A cliché is a trite expression, often a figure of speech whose effectiveness has been worn out
through overuse and excessive familiarity.
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"Cut every cliché you come across," advises author and editor Sol Stein. "Say it new or say it
straight" (Stein on Writing, 1995). But cutting clichés isn't as easy as pie--or even as easy as one,
two, three. Before you can eliminate clichés you have to be able to recognize them. 
Etymology
From the French, "stereotype plate"
 
Examples and Observations
 "The essence of a cliché is that words are not misused, but have gone dead."
(Clive James, Glued to the Box. Jonathan Cape, 1982)
 "I think I'll adopt the definition set forth by someone who has thought about clichés longer than I have. In On
Clichés (Routledge and Kegan Paul [1979]), a most suggestive treatise, a Dutch sociologist named Anton C.
Zijderveld defines a cliché thus:
A cliché is a traditional form of human expression (in words, thoughts, emotions, gestures, acts) which--due
to repetitive use in social life--has lost its original, often ingenious heuristic power. Although it thus fails
positively to contribute meaning to social interactions andcommunication, it does function socially, since it
manages to stimulate behavior (cognition, emotion, volition, action), while it avoids reflection on meanings.
This is a definition that doesn't, you might say, throw the baby out with the bathwater; it leaves no stone unturned
while offering several blessings in disguise, and in the final analysis provides an acid test. You might say all
this, that is, if you have an ear dead to the grossest of clichés."
(Joseph Epstein, "The Ephemeral Verities." The American Scholar, Winter 1979-80)
 "People say, 'I'm taking it one day at a time.' You know what? So is everybody. That's how time works."
(Comedian Hannibal Buress, 2011)
 
 Live and learn. Stay the course. What goes around comes around.
 
 "I sailed through a logjam of dead literary clichés: snow-capped peaks above, fathomless depths below;
and, in the middle of the picture, the usual gaunt cliffs, hoary crags, wild woods and crystal cascades."
(Jonathan Raban, Passage to Juneau, 1999)
 
 Avoid Clichés Like . . .
"Clichés are a dime a dozen. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. They've been used once too often.
They've outlived their usefulness. Their familiarity breeds contempt. They make the writer look as dumb as a
doornail, and they cause the reader to sleep like a log. So be sly as a fox. Avoid clichés like the plague. If you
start to use one, drop it like a hot potato. Instead, be smart as a whip. Write something that is fresh as a
daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack. Better safe than sorry."
(Gary Provost, 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing. Mentor, 1985)
 
 Types of Clichés
absence makes the heart grow fonder is a proverb cliché indicating that, if two people who love each other
are separated, the separation is likely to intensify their love for each other.

Achilles heel is an allusion cliché meaning a weak spot, a flaw that makes one vulnerable.

acid test is an idiom cliché referring to a test which will either prove or disprove the truth or worth of
something.

age before beauty is a catchphrase cliché supposedly used when allowing someone older to go before one
into a room, etc., although this seems rather arrogant if used seriously.

alive and kicking is a doublet cliché, both words in the context meaning much the same thing.

avoid like the plague is a simile cliché meaning to avoid contact as much as possible.

(Betty Kirkpatrick, Clichés: Over 1500 Phrases Explored and Explained. St. Martin's Press, 1996)
 
 Stale Metaphors and Poor Excuses
"When metaphors are fresh they are a form of thought, but when they are stale they are a way to avoid
thought. Tip of the iceberg offends the ear as a cliché, and it offends reason because it is imprecise, if not
spurious--just as when people say, 'And the list goes on,' and one knows that they have actually run out of
examples. Often the writer will try to excuse the cliché by acknowledging it ('the proverbial cat that ate the
 P a g e | 32

canary') or by dressing it up ('the icing on the marketing cake'). These gambits never work."
(Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd, Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction. Random House, 2013)
 
 Recognizing and Evaluating Clichés
- "Our writers are full of clichés just as old barns are full of bats. There is obviously no rule about this, except
that anything you suspect of being a cliché undoubtedly is one and had better be removed."
(Wolcott Gibbs)

- "You probably haven't lived as long as, say, your storytelling uncle, so how can you be expected to know
a cliché if you write one? The best way to develop an ear for clichés (as well as for originality) is to read as
much as you can. There is also that most useful weapon in any battle, the one you are developing every
day--experience."
(Steven Frank, The Pen Commandments. Pantheon Books, 2003)

- "It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue."
(Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot, 1997)

- "Some clichés were quite apt when first used but have become hackneyed over the years. One can hardly
avoid using the occasional cliché, but clichés that are inefficient in conveying their meaning or are
inappropriate to the occasion should be avoided."
(M. Manswer, Bloomsbury Good Word Guide, 1988)

- "You might . . .want to base your notion of the cliché not on the expression itself but on its use; if it seems
to be used without much reference to a definite meaning, it is then perhaps a cliché. But even this line of
attack fails to separate cliché from the common forms of polite social intercourse. A second and more
workable approach would be simply to call a cliché whatever word or expression you have heard or seen
often enough to find annoying."
(Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, 1989)
 
 Mr. Arbuthnot, the Cliché Expert
Q: Mr. Arbuthnot, you are an expert in the use of the cliché as applied to matters of health and ill health, are
you not?
A: I am.
Q: In that case, how do you feel?
A: Oh, fair to middling. I suppose. I can't complain.
Q: You don't sound so awfully chipper.
A: What's the use of complaining? I hate people who are always telling their friends about their ailments. O-o-
h!
Q: What's the matter?
A: My head. It's splitting. . . .
Q: Have you taken anything?
A: I've taken everything but nothing seems to do me any good.
Q: Maybe you're coming down with a cold.
A: Oh, I always have a cold. I'm subject to colds.
Q: There's certainly quite a lot of 'em around.
A: You know, I'm supposed to say that. I'm the cliché expert around here, not you.
(Frank Sullivan, "The Cliché Expert Doesn't Feel Well." Frank Sullivan at His Best, Dover, 1996)
 Stock Comparisons in 1907
The following interesting lines, of which the composer is unknown, contain all the stock comparisons most
frequently used in conversation, arranged in such a manner as to rhyme:
As wet as a fish—as dry as a bone,
As live as a bird—as dead as a stone,
As plump as a partridge—as poor as a rat,
As strong as a horse—as weak as a cat,
As hard as a flint—as soft as a mole,
As white as a lily—as black as a coal,
As plain as a pikestaff—as rough as a bear,
As light as a drum—as free as the air,
As heavy as lead—as light as a feather,
 P a g e | 33

As steady as time—uncertain as weather,

As hot as an oven—as cold as a frog,
As gay as a lark—as sick as a dog,
As slow as the tortoise—as swift as the wind,
As true as the Gospel—as false as mankind,
As thin as a herring—as fat as a pig,
As proud as a peacock—as blithe as a grig,
As savage as tigers—as mild as a dove,
As stiff as a poker—as limp as a glove,
As blind as a bat—as deaf as a post,
As cool as a cucumber—as warm as a toast,
As flat as a flounder—as round as a ball,
As blunt as a hammer—as sharp as an awl,
As red as a ferret—as safe as the stocks,
As bold as a thief—as sly as a fox,
As straight as an arrow—as crook'd as a bow,
As yellow as saffron—as black as a sloe,
As brittle as glass—as tough as gristle,
As neat as my nail—as clean as a whistle,
As good as a feast—as bad as a witch,
As light as is day—as dark as is pitch,
As brisk as a bee—as dull as an ass,
As full as a tick—as solid as brass."
(Pictorial Comedy: The Humorous Phases of Life Depicted by Eminent Artists, Vol. 17, 1907)
 
 The Lighter Side of Clichés
- "That's the way with these directors: they're always biting the hand that lays the golden egg."
(attributed to Samuel Goldwyn)

- "Shortly after returning from his tour of the Near East, Anthony Eden submitted a long-winded report to the
Prime Minister on his experiences and impressions. [Winston] Churchill, it is told, returned it to his War
Minister with a note, 'As far as I can see you have used every cliché except "God is love" and "Please adjust
your dress before leaving."'"
(Life, Dec. 1940. Churchill denied that the story was true.)

- "[Winston] Churchill was once asked why he never began a speech with 'It gives me a great deal of
pleasure . . ..' He replied: 'There are only a few things from which I derive great pleasure, and speaking is not
one of them.'"
(James C. Humes, Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln: 21 Powerful Secrets of History's Greatest
Speakers. Three Rivers Press, 2002)

Reginald Perrin: Well, we meet in altered circumstances, CJ.

CJ: We do indeed.
Reginald Perrin: The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
CJ: I couldn't put it better myself.
Reginald Perrin: The night is darkest before the storm.
CJ: Precisely. I didn't get where you are today without knowing that the night is darkest before the storm.
Reginald Perrin: Now tell me, CJ. Do you think you can work happily with me as your boss?
CJ: If you ask me a straight question, I'm going to give you a straight answer. I've always taken great pains
not to talk in clichés. A cliché to me is like a red rag to a bull. However, there's an exception that proves a
rule, and there is a cliché which fits my situation like a glove.
Reginald Perrin: And that is?
CJ: Necessity is the mother of intention. In other words, Reggie, I am forced to consider working for you.
(David Nobbs, The Return of Reginald Perrin. BBC, 1977)

Chunk
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Definition:
In studies of language acquisition, several words that are customarily used together in a fixed
expression, such as "in my opinion," "to make a long story short," "How are you?" or "Know what I
mean?"

Chunk and chunking were introduced as cognitive terms by psychologist George A. Miller in his

paper "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for
Processing Information" (1956).
Examples and Observations:
 "Here is one that got away, and lived to tell the tale."
(Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1983, 2009)
 "Oh, by the way, how's the Florence Henderson look working for you?"
(Matthew Morrison as Will Schuester, "The Power of Madonna." Glee, 2010)
 "Once upon a time, there was a lovely princess. But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort,
which could only be broken by love's first kiss."
(Shrek, 2001)
 "The only thing Junior Singleton reads cover to cover is a matchbook."
(The Red Green Show, 1991)
 "It may be that across the immensity of space the Martians have watched the fate of these pioneers of theirs
and learned their lesson, and that on the planet Venus they have found a securer settlement. Be that as it
may, for many years yet there will certainly be no relaxation of the eager scrutiny of the Martian disk, and
those fiery darts of the sky, the shooting stars, will bring with them as they fall an unavoidable apprehension."
(H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, 1898)
 
 "'Do you know the phrase watershed moment, buddy?'

"I nodded. You didn't have to be an English teacher to know that one; you didn't even have to be literate. It
was one of those annoying linguistic shortcuts that show up on cable TV news shows, day in and day out.
Others include connect the dots and at this point in time. The most annoying of all (I have inveighed against it
to my clearly bored students time and time and time again) is the totally meaningless some people say,
or many people believe."
(Stephen King, 11/22/63. Scribner, 2011)
 Uses of Prefabricated Chunks
- "It seems that in the initial stages of first language acquisition and natural second language acquisition we
acquire unanalysed chunks, but that these gradually get broken down into smaller components . . ..

"The prefabricated chunks are utilised in fluent output, which, as many researchers from different traditions
have noted, largely depends on automatic processing of stored units. According to Erman and Warren's
(2000) count, about half of running text is covered by such recurrent units."
(J. M. Sinclair and A. Mauranen, Linear Unit Grammar: Integrating Speech and Writing. John Benjamins,
2006)

- "If I find an especially felicitous way of expressing an idea, I may store up that turn of phrase so that the
next time I need it it will come forth as a prefabricated chunk, even though to my hearer it may not be
distinguishable from newly generated speech. This . . . kind of expression, then, not only is completely
analyzable by the grammar of the language but as a result of its transparency has a dual status for the
speaker: It can be handled either as a single unit or as a complex construction with internal structure (e.g.,
words can be inserted into or deleted from the phrase, or the grammatical structure can be changed as
needed)."
(Ann M. Peters, The Units of Language Acquisition. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983)
 Formulaic Phrases vs. Literal Expressions
"[T]he formulaic phrase has unique properties: it is cohesive and unitary in structure (sometimes with
aberrant grammatical form), often nonliteral or deviant in meaning properties, and usually contains a nuanced
meaning that transcends the sum of its (lexical) parts. The canonical form of the expression ('formuleme') is
known to native speakers. This is to say that a formulaic expression functions differently in form, meaning,
and use from a matched, literal, novel, or propositional expression (Lounsbury, 1963). 'It broke the ice,' for
example, as a formula, differs regarding meaning representation, exploitation of lexical items, status in
language memory, and range of possible usages, when compared to the exact same sequence of words as a
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novel expression."
(Diana Van Lancker Sidtis, "Formulaic and Novel Language in a 'Dual Process' Model of Language
Competence." Formulaic Language, Vol. 2., ed. by Roberta Corrigan et al. John Benjamins, 2009)
 Criticism of the Lexical-Chunk Approach
"Michael Swan, a British writer on language pedagogy, has emerged as a prominent critic of the lexical-
chunk approach. Though he acknowledges, as he told me in an e-mail, that 'high-priority chunks need to be
taught,' he worries that 'the "new toy" effect can mean that formulaic expressions get more attention than
they deserve, and other aspects of language--ordinary vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and skills--get
sidelined.'

"Swan also finds it unrealistic to expect that teaching chunks will produce native like proficiency in language
learners. 'Native English speakers have tens or hundreds of thousands--estimates vary--of these formulae at
their command,' he says. 'A student could learn 10 a day for years and still not approach native-speaker
competence.'"
(Ben Zimmer, "On Language: Chunking." The New York Times Magazine, Sep. 19, 2010)
Also Known As: language chunk, lexical chunk, praxon, formulated speech, formulaic phrase,
formulaic speech, lexical bundle, lexical phrase, collocation

Collocation
Definition
A collocation is a familiar grouping of words, especially words that habitually appear together and
thereby convey meaning by association.
Collocational range refers to the set of items that typically accompany a word. The size of a
collocational range is partially determined by a word's level of specificity and number of meanings. 

The term collocation (from the Latin for "place together") was first used in its linguistic sense by
British linguist John Rupert Firth (1890-1960), who famously observed, "You shall know a word by
the company it keeps."
Examples and Observations
 "Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith."
(Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961)
 "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this
moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo."
(James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916)
 "The mule has more horse sense than a horse. He knows when to stop eating--and he knows when to stop
working."
(Harry S Truman)
 "I'm an incredible man, possessing an iron will and nerves of steel--two traits that have helped me become
the genius I am today as well as the lady killer I was in days gone by."
(William Morgan Sheppard as Dr. Ira Graves, "The Schizoid Man." Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1989)
 "The acting buildings commissioner . . . said in a statement, 'The Buildings Department will have zero
tolerance for builders, contractors, and property owners who fail to take appropriate measures to secure their
construction sites and buildings.'"
(Sewell Chan, "Buildings Department Warns of High Winds." The New York Times, June 16, 2008)
 The Wheel of Fortune Lexicon
"Collocations and clichés are strings of words that are remembered as wholes and often used together,
such as gone with the wind or like two peas in a pod. People know tens of thousands of these expressions;
the linguist Ray Jackendoff refers to them as 'the Wheel of Fortune lexicon,' after the game show in which
contestants guess a familiar expression from a few fragments."
(Steven Pinker, Words and Rules. HarperCollins, 1999)
 Predictability of Collocations
"Every lexeme has collocations, but some are much more predictable than others. Blond collocates strongly
with hair, flock with sheep, neigh with horse. Some collocations are totally predictable, such
as spick with span, or addled with brains . . .. Others are much less so: letter collocates with a wide range of
lexemes, such as alphabet and spelling, and (in another sense)box, post, and write. . . .

"Collocations should not be confused with 'association of ideas.' The way lexemes work together may have
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nothing to do with 'ideas.' We say in English green with jealousy (not blue or red), though there is nothing
literally 'green' about 'jealousy.'"
(David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook Press, 2005)
 Collocational Range
"Two main factors can influence the collocational range of an item (Beekman and Callow, 1974). The first is
its level of specificity: the more general a word is, the broader its collocational range; the more specific it is,
the more restricted its collocational range. The verb bury is likely to have a much broader collocational range
than any of its hyponyms, such as inter or entomb, for example. Only people can be interred, but you
can bury people, a treasure, your head, face, feelings, and memories. The second factor which determines
the collocational range of an item is the number of senses it has. Most words have several senses and they
tend to attract a different set of collocates for each sense."
(Mona Baker, In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. Routledge, 1992)
 The Lighter Side: George Carlin on Collocations in Advertising
"Quality, value, style,
service, selection, convenience,
economy, savings, performance,
experience, hospitality,
low rates, friendly service,
name brands, easy terms,
affordable prices, money-back guarantee,
free installation.

"Free admission, free appraisal, free alterations,

free delivery, free estimates,
free home trial--and free parking.

"No cash? No problem. No kidding!

No fuss, no muss, no risk, no obligation,
no red tape, no down payment,
no entry fee, no hidden charges,
no purchase necessary,
no one will call on you,
no payments or interest till September.

"Limited time only, though,

so act now,
order today,
send no money,
offer good while supplies last,
two to a customer,
each item sold separately,
batteries not included,
mileage may vary,
all sales are final,
allow six weeks for delivery,
some items not available,
some assembly required,
some restrictions may apply."
(George Carlin, "Advertising Lullabye." Napalm & Silly Putty. HarperCollins, 2001)
Pronunciation: KOL-oh-KAY-shun