The Verbal Group

Abstract

The verb is that part of the sentence or clause which serves to indicate the occurrence or performance of an action, or the existence of a state or condition. Through tense it implies the existence of time; and through person the existence of a subject. Perhaps more has been written on the verb than on any other part of speech. Much of this research is concerned with the verb in spoken language, particularly, in recent work, in the speech of uneducated or culturally non-standard users of English (see, for example, William Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City (1966); M. Ehrman, The Meaning of the Modals in Present-Day American English (1966); full bibliographies in F. R. Palmer, The English Verb (1974); F. R. Palmer, Modality and the English Modals (1979); Geoffrey Leech, Meaning and the English Verb (1971)).