Verbs & Action Verbs Lesson

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* What is a verb?
* What is an action verb?

Verbs are parts of speech that denotes an action, occurrence, event or a state of being. Verbs are ‘doing’ or ‘being’ words. There are different types of verbs, such as action, transitive verbs, intransitive verbs, auxiliary verbs, stative verbs, modal verbs, phrasal verbs and irregular verbs, but for today, we are concentrating on identifying action verbs. Action verbs are the ‘doing’ words.

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* What is a verb?

A verb is one of the eight parts of speech.

 

Verbs describe the main part of a sentence: in other words, what is happening? If there is an event in the sentence, the part of speech describing the event is the verb. Every complete sentence contains a verb. Interestingly, verbs change to show tense (nouns don’t), so for example, the verb ‘run’ in the present tense becomes ‘ran’ in the past tense.

* What is an action verb?

An action verb is a verb that is confined to the description of a physical or mental action. It tells us what the subject of a sentence is doing, thinking or feeling.

To find out what the action verb is in a sentence, ask yourself questions like:
* What was done?
* What happened?
* What is happening? And so forth.

Action verbs can describe mental or physical actions:
‘Think’, ‘feel’, ‘loved’ are all action verbs.



As are words denoting physical actions such as:
‘Clap’, ‘run’, ‘eat’ and so forth.

Action verbs are words which the subject of a sentence can do, think or feel, so if you’re not sure whether or not a word is an action verb, ask yourself whether it’s something the subject of a sentence can do, think or feel.

Common action verbs are underlined in the sentences below:

1. My computer crashed. In this case, the subject of the sentence is the computer. The action it undertook was to crash.



2. The stock market performed badly. The subject of the sentence is the stock market. What did the stock market do? It performed. So the verb is ‘performed’.

3. The dog woke me. The dog is the subject of the sentence. What action did the dog take? It woke me. So the verb is ‘woke’.

4. Einstein thought deeply. Einstein is the subject of the sentence. Thought is what he did. Therefore, the verb is ‘thought’.

5. I lazed around the house all Saturday. I am the subject of the sentence. What did I do? I lazed. ‘Lazed’ is the verb.

6. Tommy played with Lisa’s toys. The subject of the sentence is Tommy. What did Tommy do? Tommy played. The verb is therefore ‘played’.

Now you have done the lesson…

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* TRY THE NEXT LESSON: Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
* TRY THE NEXT TEST: Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

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