GRAMMATICAL CLASSES

OF VERBS Saidalieva Eliza

HL1-18A
 CONTENTS:

The class of verbs

Notional verbs
Terminative/durative verbs
Syntactic/obligatory/optional
valency
 Complementive and
supplementive verbs
 THE CLASS OF VERBS

The first division is between the set of verbs

of

The sets of verbs of

Full nominative partial nominative
value value
(notional verbs)
(Semi-notional and
functional verbs)
 NOTIONAL VERBS

It includes such actional verbs,

grammatically relevant expressing the
semantic subclasses as
action,performed by
statal verbs, denoting
the state of their the subject
subject

(be, live, (do, act, make, go, take,

suffer, know, see, etc) etc)
 TERMINATIVE/DURATIVE VERBS

There are also terminative verbs, semantically

related to the idea of a processual limit
(e. g. arrive)

durative verbs, which are alien to any idea of

a limit
(e. g. move).
 SYNTACTIC/OBLIGATORY/OPTIONAL
VALENCY
Syntactic valency is the combining power of words in
relations to other words in syntactically subordinate
positions.

The obligatory valency must necessarily be realized for the

sake of the grammatical completion of the syntactic
construction (e. g. the subject and the direct object are
obligatory valency partners of the verb in the sentence).

The optional valency is not necessarily realized in

grammatically complete constructions
(e. g. most of the adverbial modifiers are optional parts of the
sentence).
 COMPLEMENTIVE AND SUPPLEMENTIVE
VERBS

 Complementive and supplementive verbs fall into

minor groups:
 complementive verbs are subdivided into
 predicative,
 objective,
 and adverbial verbs;
supplementive verbs are subdivided into
 adverbial
 and objective.
 AUXILIARY VERBS

These predicators include

o auxiliary verbs,
o link-verbs,
o modal verbs,
o and semi-notional verbal introducers.

 Auxiliary verbs (be, have, do, will, would, etc)

constitute the grammatical elements of the
categorical forms of the verb .
 LINK VERBS

The class comprises the “pure link-verb” be and the

“specifying link-verbs” falling into two main
groups:
 those that express perceptions (seem, appear, look,
feel,taste, smell, etc) and
 those that express factual link-verb connection
(become, get, grow, remain, keep, etc).
These are some notional verbs, which perform two
functions simultaneously, combining the role of a full
notional verb in a simple verbal predicate with the
role of a link verb in a compound nominal predicate,
e. g. The moon rose red.
 MODAL VERBS

Modal verbs (can, may, must, should, ought to,

need, etc)
Modal verbs are defective in form, they are
supplemented by stative groups, e. g. be able.
 The verbs be and have in the
modal meanings be planned, be obliged are
considered as modal verbs and usually included
in the list of modal verbs.
 Semi-notional verbal introducers are distributed among the
sets of verbs of discriminatory relational semantics

(seem, happen, turn out,come out, etc),

 of phasal semantics (begin, start, continue, stop, etc)

 of subject — action relational semantics (try, manage, fail, want, like,

love, etc)

 These predicator verbs should be distinguished from their

grammatical homonyms in the class of notional verbs

(They began to
fight — They began the fight)
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Blokh M. Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar / M. Y.

Blokh. Moscow,2004. P. 86–90.

 Quirk R. A University Grammar of English / R. Quirk [et al.].

Moscow, 1982.P. 32.