CLASSIFICATION OF VERBS Verbs may be classified according to:
(1) the ways of forming the Past Indefinite and Participle II;
(2) their syntactical function;
(3) their association with the subject and the object.
(1) According to the ways of forming the Past Indefinite and Participle II, verbs are divided into two groups: regular and irregular.
Regular Verbs form the Past Indefinite and Participle II by adding the suffix -ed to the stem of the verbs or only -d if the stem of the verb ends in -e. This suffix can be pronounced differently: [d] after vowels and voiced consonants, e. g. played, changed; [t] after voiceless consonants, e. g. asked, passed; [id] after [t] and [d], e. g. wanted, decided.
The forms of the Past Indefinite and Participle II of the regular verbs are homonymous.
Irregular Verbs. Here belong the following groups of verbs (see the tables on p. 66—67):
(1) Verbs with vowel or consonant change (which may be accompanied by affixation):
s ing—sang—sung vowel change
win— won—won
(2) Unchangeable verbs;
p ut —put —put consonant change
set—set — set
(3) Mixed verbs (their Past Indefinite is of the regular type and their Participle II is of the irregular type):
show — showed — shown sow — sowed — sown
Suppletive verbs:
be — was, were — been go — went — gone
(5) Special irregular verbs;
do — did — done have — had — had
(6) Defective verbs:
can — could must
may — might ought
shall — should will — would
(2) According to their syntactical function, which is closely connected with their semantic value, all verbs are divided into notional, structural and modal verbs; structural verbs are subdivided into auxiliary verbs and linking verbs.
Notional verbs have a full lexical meaning of their own and can be used in a sentence as a simple predicate. Here belong the majority of English verbs (e. g. speak, read, write, know, live, etc.).
In his own small room Martin lived, slept, wrote and kept house.