Verbs as a word class

One of the key features of verbs is that they change their form, or inflect more than other words. Verbs inflect like this:

Forms of the verb

So we can say that all verbs have five forms, or parts:

• stem: eat
• present tense: eat/eats
• past tense: ate
• -ing participle: eating
• -ed participle: eaten

Regular and irregular verbs

All verbs do not work in the same way as the example we have used. Eat is, in fact, irregular. Regular verbs are more predictable in the way they form the five parts:

• stem: walk
• present tense: walk/walks
• past tense: walked
• -ing participle: walking
• -ed participle: walked

There are far more regular verbs than there are irregular, but many of the commonest verbs are irregular.
For example:

©John Seely 2008