Course paper Theme: Verbs as a part of speech, grammatical categories of verbs

So what we actually find in the Modern English verb is this:

3rd person singular — lives

All the rest — live

If we analyse this state of things in the Modern English verb in exact terms we shall reach the following conclusion. The opposition lives /live, or, in general terms, stem + s / stem + 0, expresses the relation: 3rd person singular/any person of both numbers except 3rd person singular.

It is quite clear that the first item of the opposition is marked both in meaning (3rd person sing.) and in form (-s), whereas the second item is unmarked both in meaning (everything except the 3rd person sing.) and in form (zero-inflection). We ought to add that the category of mood is implied in this opposition, the form lives belonging to the indicative mood only, whereas live may also be any person of both numbers in the subjunctive mood (as far as we recognize its existence at all). Another consequence of this analysis is, that the -s-inflection in verbs conveys 4 meanings: 1) 3rd person, 2) singular number, 3) present tense, 4) indicative mood. The present tense is of course characterized by other signs as well: by the absence of the -d (or -t) morpheme denoting the past tense in regular verbs, and by alternation of the root vowel (e. g. [i] in drinks as against [ae] in drank) in irregular verbs. But in verbs of the type put the -s is the only distinctive sign of the present.

The ending -s having four meanings to express simultaneously is of course a synthetic feature, standing rather by itself in the general structure of Modern English. Some verbs do not fit into the system of person and number described above and they must be mentioned separately both in a practical study of-the language and in theoretical analysis. We will limit ourselves to the verb can (the verbs may, shall, and some others sharing some of its features) and the verb be, which stands quite apart and, of course, is very widely used. The verb can, as is well known, takes no -s-inflection parallel to such forms as lives, writes, takes, etc. Hence it follows that this verb has no category of person or number at all.

The verb be has a system of its own both in the present indicative and in the past. Its system in the present indicative is as follows: 1st person singular — am; 3rd person singular — is; 2nd person (without distinction of number) –are. Plural (without distinction of person) - are In the past tense the system is: 1st and 3rd person singular — was; 2nd person (without distinction of number) –were. Plural (without distinction of person)- were.

In analysing the system of person and number we have so far bypassed the forms of the type livest, takest, livedst, tookest. These forms are associated with the personal pronoun thou .and are only used in religions and occasionally in poetical texts and among Quakers. As they stand outside the received grammatical system we can not go into details concerning them. Suffice it to say that with these forms the category of number appears within the category of the 2nd person and the whole system of person and number (including the past tense) must be presented in a different shape.