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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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V
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Verb
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INFOTEXT
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1992-09-01
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The grammatical part of speech for what
someone or something does (to go),
experiences (to live), or is (to be). Verbs
involve the grammatical categories known as
number (singular or plural: `He runs; they
run'), voice (active or passive: `She writes
books; it is written'), mood (statements,
questions, orders, emphasis, necessity,
condition), aspect (completed or continuing
action: `She danced; she was dancing'), and
tense (variation according to time: simple
present tense, present progressive tense,
simple past tense, and so on). Verbs are
formed from nouns and adjectives by adding
affixes (prison: imprison; light: enlighten;
fresh: freshen up; pure: purify). Some words
function as both nouns and verbs (crack,
run), both adjectives and verbs (clean;
ready), and as nouns, adjectives, and verbs
(fancy). types of verb A transitive verb
takes a direct object (`He saw the house').
An intransitive verb has no object (`She
laughed'). An auxiliary or helping verb is
used to express tense and/or mood (`He was
seen'; `They may come'). A modal verb or
modal auxiliary generally shows only mood;
common modals are may/might, will/would,
can/could, shall/should, must. The infinitive
of the verb usually includes to (to go, to
run and so on), but may be a bare infinitive
(for example, after modals, as in `She may
go'). A regular verb forms tenses in the
normal way (I walk: I walked: I have walked);
irregular verbs do not (swim: swam: swum;
put: put: put; and so on). Because of their
conventional nature, regular verbs are also
known as weak verbs, while some irregular
verbs are strong verbs with special vowel
changes across tenses, as in swim: swam: swum
and ride: rode: ridden. A phrasal verb is a
construction in which a particle attaches to
a usually single-syllable verb (for example,
put becoming put up, as in `He put up some
money for the project', and put up with, as
in `I can't put up with this nonsense any
longer').