i know a verb is a doing word like 'play' and 'buy'. At first this seems simple. But then theres words like 'is' 'can' and 'will'. Are these also verbs of any sort? Please only answer if you have a good knowledge of the English language.
2006-10-13 05:55:18 · 2 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
I think of "can" as to be able to and that helps you to see it as a verb. Most often these verbs are called auxilliary verbs because they help out with other verbs in a sentence.
2006-10-13 06:13:43 · answer #1 · answered by Melanie L 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The traditional definition of a verb is inadequate. Verbs are defined linguistically by their structural characteristics. A verb in English can be marked for future tense with the auxiliary "will". That is the easiest of the structural definitions. So "play", "be", "seem" are all verbs--"I will play", "I will be", "I will seem". This excludes pseudo-verbs like "can", "will", "may". These are not verbs in English, but auxiliaries. They can only occur in the slot Noun __ Verb, thus "I can run", "I will run", "I may run", etc. These are actually called modals in linguistic terminology. When you have a sentence like, "I can", it only comes in response to a question "Can you run?" Implied in the response is the verb "run", thus, "I can" is actually a reduced form of the sentence "I can run". The modals in English are can, could, must, may, might, will, would, shall, and should. None of these are verbs (although historically they were).
2006-10-13 06:16:20 · answer #2 · answered by Taivo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋