Б. С. Хаймович, Б. И. Роговская теоретическая грамматика английского языка

E. g. Birds fly. He was asked by the teacher. I heard of Т о т 's coming tonight.

The examples above are intended to show the difference between the subject of an action and the subject as a part of the sentence. Only in the first sentence is the subject (doer) of the action of flying denoted by a noun used as the subject of the sentence. In the second sentence the subject of the action of asking is denoted by the noun teacher which is a part of the prepositional object. In the third sentence the subject of the action of coming is denoted by a noun (Tom's) used as an attribute.

Many verbs can also be associated with a noun (or a noun-equivalent) denoting the object of the action.
E. g. He threw a s t о п e. The letter sent two days ago has reached him only today.

Here again the object of the action is something different from the object as a part of the sentence. In the first sentence the object of the action of throwing is denoted by the noun stone functioning as a direct object. In the second sentence the noun letter denotes the object of the action of sending and the subject of the action of reaching.

§ 192. Before discussing the grammatical categories we shall consider some general classifications of verbs based on their formal, semantical and functional properties, viz. the division of verbs into standard and non-standard, notional and semi-notional, subjective and objective, terminative and non-terminative.

Though not based on grammatical meanings and catego­ries, these classifications and the terms they involve will come in useful when we discuss the categories themselves and the functioning of verb grammemes in speech.

§ 193. Write, writes, wrote, writing, written are all the synthetic forms the lexeme contains (see § 19). For short, we shall call them the forms of the 'infinitive', 'present', 'past', 'participle I' and 'participle II' respectively. The form of the stem coincides with the form of the 'infinitive' /rait-/. The form of the 'past' is related with that of the stem by vowel change /ai > ou/. The form of 'participle II' is related with the form of the stem by vowel change /ai > i/ and af­fixation /-n/.

The lexeme ask, asks, asked, asking, etc. contains only four synthetic forms. The forms of the 'past' and 'participle II' coincide (asked) and are correlated with the form of the stem by affixation alone, the suffix being /-t/.
The overwhelming majority of English verbs resemble the verb ask and are therefore called standard or regular. The form of the suffix may be /-t/, /-d/ or /-id/ depending on the final sound of the stem.
Some two hundred verbs deviate from the standard verbs and are called non-standard or irregular. They do not pres-' ent a uniform group. Some of them resemble the verb write (speak, drive, eat, etc.). Others form the 'past' and 'parti­ciple II' without affixation (cut, put, shed, etc.). Still others use both vowel and consonant change and affixation to form the 'past' (teach, buy). Some make use of suppletivity (go, be).
As we see, the difference between the standard and the non-standard verbs is purely formal. We should therefore call this classification formal rather than morphological as the tradition goes.

§ 194. Semantically verbs divide into notional and semi-notional (see § 50).

Note: Some linguists speak also of a third group, auxil­iary verbs, completely devoid of lexical meaning, as, for instance, has in has written. As shown (§ 12), they are words in form only. As to their meaning and function they are gram­matical morphemes, parts of analytical words. Hence the name grammatical word-morphemes.

The majority of English verbs are notional, i. e. possess­ing full lexical meaning. Connected with it is their isolat-ability (§ 6), i. e. the ability to make a sentence alone (Come! Read!). Their combinability is variable (see § 45).

Semi-notional verbs have very general, "faded" lexical meanings, as in be, have, become, seem, can, may, must, etc., where the meaning of 'action' is almost obliterated. Semi-notional verbs are hardly isolatable. Their combinability is usually bilateral as they serve to connect words in speech. They are comparatively few in number, but of very frequent occurrence, and include two peculiar groups: link-verbs and modal verbs.

§ 195. Some authors treat link-verbs as altogether bereft of all lexical meaning. If it were so, there would be no difference between He is old, He seems old, He becomes old, since is, seems, becomes convey the same grammatical meanings.

The combinability of link-verbs is different from that of notional verbs.
a) It is for the most part bilateral since a link-verb usually connects two words. In this respect it somewhat resembles the combinability of prepositions and conjunctions.