verb (v.) (v, V)

A term used in the GRAMMATICAL classification of words, to refer to a class traditionally defined as ‘doing’ or ‘action’ words (a description which has been criticized in LINGUISTICS, largely on the grounds that many verbs do not ‘act’ in any obvious sense, e.g. seem, be). The FORMAL definition of a verb refers to an element which can display MORPHOLOGICAL contrasts of TENSE, ASPECT, VOICE, MOOD, PERSON and NUMBER. FUNCTIONALLY, it is the ELEMENT which, singly or in combination with other verbs (i.e. as a ‘verb phrase’), is used as the minimal PREDICATE of a sentence, co-occurring with a SUBJECT, e.g. she/wrote. If the predicate contains other elements (e.g. OBJECT, COMPLEMENT, ADVERBIAL), then it is the verb which more than any other is the unit which influences the choice and extent of these elements; e.g. the verb put takes both an object and a LOCATIVE adverbial, as in he put the book on the table. In many grammatical theories, accordingly, the verb is considered the most important element in sentence structure.

The term verb phrase is used in two senses. Traditionally, it refers to a group of verbs which together have the same syntactic FUNCTION as a single verb, e.g. is coming, may be coming, get up to. In such phrases (verbal groups, verbal clusters), one verb is the main verb (a LEXICAL VERB) and the others are sub-ordinate to it (auxiliary verbs, catenative verbs). A verb followed by a non-verbal PARTICLE (similar in form to a preposition or adverb) is generally referred to as a phrasal verb.

In GENERATIVE grammar, the verb phrase (VP) has a much broader definition, being equivalent to the whole of the predicate of a sentence, as is clear from the expansion of S as NP+VP in PHRASE-STRUCTURE GRAMMAR. In the MINIMALIST PROGRAMME, the head of the upper vp SHELL is referred to as little v.

The adjective from ‘verb’, verbal, is often used in traditional grammatical description (though one must be careful not to confuse it with ‘verbal’ meaning ‘spoken’, as in ‘verbal skill’, ‘verbalize’, etc.), for instance ‘verbal noun’ (= a NOUN similar in form or meaning to a verb, e.g. smoking), ‘verbal adjective’ (= an ADJECTIVE similar in form or meaning to a verb, e.g. interested).