The Verb in the English Language

The verb is the part of speech that describes an action or indicates a state of being. Verbs and verb phrases usually function as predicates in a sentence or a clause.

They will usually display one or more of the following aspects:

• tense - expresses the time of a verb's action or state of being, such as the present, past or future;
  
• mood - expresses the quality of the verb that conveys the speaker's/writer's attitude towards a subject. There are three major moods in English: i) the indicative mood = used for factual statements or to pose questions; ii) the imperative mood - to express a request or command; iii) the subjunctive mood (rarely used) = to show a wish or a doubt.
  
• aspect - indicates completion, duration or repetition of an action. There are two primary aspects in English: i) the perfect and ii) the progressive (also known as the continuous form). These two aspects may be combined to form the perfect progressive.
  
• number - the grammatical contrast between singular and plural, which is also present in nouns, pronouns and determiners.
  
• person - the relationship between a subject and its verb, showing whether the subject is speaking about itself (first person = I or we); being spoken to (second person = you); or  being spoken about (third person = he, she, it, they)
  
• voice - the quality of a verb that indicates whether its subject acts (active voice) or is acted upon (passive voice).
  

Classifying English Verbs

These are probably the most common ways to classify English verbs in broad categories:

Many verbs have both a transitive and an intransitive function, depending on how they are used. The verb break, for instance, sometimes takes a direct object ("Rihanna breaks my heart") and sometimes does not ("When I hear your name, my heart breaks").

Transitive and Intransitive Uses of Verbs
"More exactly, we should talk about transitive or intransitive uses of certain verbs, as a great many verbs can be used in English both transitively and intransitively. Land is transitive in The pilot landed the plane safely, but intransitive in The plane landed. Carry is transitive in They carried backpacks, but it has an intransitive use in His voice carries well (= 'projects')."
    (Angela Downing, English Grammar: A University Course. Routledge, 2006)

Further categories of verbs, which don't necessarily come in pairs

Causative Verbs

These are verbs used to indicate that some person or thing helps to make something happen. Normally these are followed by another verb, like in: Learning English will enable you to speak it at ease in a foreign country. He made me realise the truth instantly. I forced him to speak up. Other examples: cause, allow, help, have, enable, keep, hold, let, force, require, and make

Catenative Verbs

A verb--such as keep, promise, want, seem, and many others--that can link with other verbs to form a chain or series. A catenative verb (also called a chain verb) takes a nonfinite clause as its complement, as in: He decided to try to make his mother understand his endeavours.

Copular Verbs

These are verbs that join the subject of a sentence to a subject complement. Common copular verbs are: be, seem, appear, look, sound, smell, taste, feel, become, get. After copular verbs we use adjectives, not adverbs. Compare:
He spoke intelligently. (Intelligently is an adverb. It tells you about how the person spoke.)
He looks intelligent. (Intelligent is an adjective in a predicative position. It tells you about the person himself.)


Performative Verbs

These are verbs, such as promise, invite, apologize, and forbid--that explicitly conveys the kind of speech act being performed. By saying we apologize we perform an expressive act simultaneously with the naming of that expressive act. A test for whether a verb is being used performatively is the possible insertion of hereby: I hereby apologize; The committee hereby thanks you.