Verb Form, Voice, Person, & Number

Verb Form, Voice, Person, & Number

In the last slide presentation, you learned about TENSE & MOOD. In English, there are 6 tenses & 3 moods. There are also 3 FORMS, 2 VOICES, 3 PERSONS, & 2 NUMBERS. Don’t get scared. You already know about person & number, & you may already know about voice.

Form English has 3 forms: Simple I speak Progressive I am speaking Emphatic I do speak All of the above are in present tense. We can put all of them in the past tense: Simple I spoke Progressive I was speaking Emphatic I did speak We can use the simple & progressive forms in the future tense: Simple I will speak Progressive I will be speaking You can’t put the emphatic form in the future. You can’t say *I will do speak.

Hopefully, you’ve figured out what’s meant by form and how to identify each of the 3. Emphatic: has DO or DID as a helping verb. Progressive: has a tense of TO BE + -ing added to the verb (the –ing verb is called a present participle, incidentally) Simple: the default form (just as indicative is the default mood) Spanish has only progressive (estoyhablando) & simple (hablo). There’s no emphatic.

Voice There are 2 voices in both English & Spanish: active & passive. Active: I threw the glass. Passive: The glass was thrown. In the active voice, the subject is doing something. In the passive voice, something is happening to the subject. The passive voice always consists of TO BE + the past participle (the verb you use with “have”: have EATEN—The banana was eaten; have SUNG—The song was sung)

Both voices can be in ANY tense: I throw the glass. The glass is thrown. I threw the glass. The glass was thrown. I will throw the glass. The glass will be thrown. I have thrown the glass. The glass has been thrown. I had thrown the glass. The glass had been thrown. I will have thrown the glass. The glass will have been thrown. The active voice can also be in any form: I throw the glass. I do throw the glass. I am throwing the glass. The passive voice cannot be used in the emphatic form, & the progressive form can be used but is frequently awkward: The glass is thrown. The glass is being thrown.

Now that you know how to form the passive voice, you need to know that it should be avoided in formal writing. In general, the active voice is considered a stronger way to write. But if you’re very clever & very observant, you’ll notice that I used the passive voice twice in the previous paragraph. In sentences like “the glass was thrown,” it’s better to say “I threw the glass.” But in the above sentences, where the subject isn’t important, passive voice is OK. I remember writing in high school, “Writers consider the active voice a stronger way to write,” because I wasn’t supposed to use the passive voice. But that’s not quite right, because it’s not just writers—it’s also English teachers & maybe a few other people. So there’s no way to write that sentence in the active voice & make it correct & also make it sound natural.

Person & Number This is easy. Person is first, second, or third. I you he/she/it Number is singular or plural: singular plural 1st I we 2nd you y’all 3rd he/she/it they

You can identify every very IN CONTEXT by all six attributes: He was washing his car.**The books will be published. Indicative mood indicative mood Past tense future tense Progressive form simple form Active voice passive voice 3rd person 3rd person Singular plural

Now let’s see if you can identify the attributes of the following verbs. You do read a lot. Mood? Indicative Tense? Present Form? Emphatic Voice? Active Person? 3rd Number? Plural

We had been sitting in the living room. Mood? Indicative Tense? Past perfect Form? Progressive Voice? Active Person? 1st Number? Plural

I recommend that he visit Glasgow. Mood? Subjunctive Tense? Present Form? Simple Voice? Active Person? 3rd Number? singular

We will visit next year, because the church will have been finished by then. Mood? Indicative Tense? Future perfect Form? Simple Voice? Passive Person? 3rd Number? singular

Smile if you want to get out of a ticket. Mood? Imperative Tense? Present Form? Simple Voice? Active Person? 2nd Number? singular

Verb Form, Voice, Person, & Number