A Guide to Lexical Verbs

In English grammar, a lexical verb  is the  main verb  in a sentence. Lexical verbs—also called full verbs—convey the  semantic (or lexical) meaning  in a sentence, such as I ran fast or I ate the entire hamburger. Not surprisingly, the great majority of verbs in English are lexical verbs, which are those that are not auxiliary  (or  helping)  verbs. Lexical vs. Auxiliary Verbs Lexical verbs are the doing verbs, while auxiliary verbs are their helpers, as  eNotes  explains: Lexical verbs indicate the main action taking place in any sentence and therefore the intention of the sentence becomes clear; whereas, auxiliary verbs have a more subtle function because they often complete a sentence without the reader being aware how they contribute to [its] structure. An auxiliary verb determines the  mood,  tense,  voice,  or  aspect  of another verb in a verb phrase. Put another way, a  helping verb comes before the  main (lexical) verb in a  sentence. Together, they form a  verb phrase. In English, the auxiliary verbs are: Is, am, are, was, wereBe, being, beenHas,  have,  hadDo, does, didWill, shall, should, wouldCan, couldMay, might, must Lexical verbs constitute all the rest. Lexical verbs can be grouped according to four types:  transitive and intransitive,  linking,  dynamic  and  static (or stative),  as well as  regular  and  irregular. Transitive and Intransitive A  transitive lexical verb expresses action and needs a direct object to receive that action, notes Dictionary.com, which gives the sentence  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Alice  sees  the candle† as an example. In the sentence, sees  is the lexical verb and is transitive, while  the candle  is the direct object because it receives the action of the lexical verb sees. Intransitive verbs, by contrast,  express action but don’t affect a direct object. For example, if you say â€Å"Alice  dances,† the word  dances  is the lexical verb, but it is intransitive because it doesn’t require a direct object. Linking Verbs A linking verb is an important lexical verb  (such as a form of  be  or  seem) that joins the  subject  of a sentence to a word or phrase that  tells something about the subject. For example,  is  functions as a linking verb in the sentence The boss  is  unhappy. Note that  to be  verbs such as is can also serve as auxiliary verbs depending on how the sentence is constructed. In the sentence, Alice  is helping  Victor with his homework, is  serves as the auxiliary verb because it helps the lexical verb  helping.   Dynamic and Static A  dynamic verb—also called an action verb—is used primarily to indicate an action, process, or sensation. An example of dynamic verbs in action is this saying uttered by Hall of Fame baseball player Willie Mays in describing the game: They  throw  the ball, I  hit  it. They  hit  the ball, I  catch  it. By contrast, a static (or stative) verb  is  used primarily to describe a state or situation.  An example would be,  We  are  what we  believe  we  are.  Note that as in the linking verbs section, the  to be  verb—in this case,  are—can be a lexical verb, describing a state of being. Regular and Irregular A regular  verb is one that forms its tenses, especially the  past tense  and  past participle, by adding one in the set of generally accepted standardized suffixes. Regular verbs are conjugated by adding either -d, -ed, -ing, or -s to their  base form. An  irregular  verb, meanwhile, does not follow the usual  rules  for verb forms. In the sentence, â€Å"She  looks  in the mirror,† the main verb  looks  is a regular verb, Dictionary.com explains, adding that the past tense of look is looked. So in the past tense, the sentence would read, She looked  in the mirror. In comparison, an example of irregular verbs in a sentence would be: The bridge they  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹built brought traffic in both directions. The present tense of the first verb in the sentence is build, but in the past tense, it is  built. Similarly, the present tense of the second verb would be  bring,  but in the past tense  as used in the sentence, its  brought. Hard-Working Verbs Clearly, lexical verbs do much of the heavy lifting in English. They provide the action (intransitive and dynamic verbs), explain what is happening to various direct objects (transitive verbs), and describe states of being (static) among their many duties. Learn the lexical verbs in English and you will master the very heart of what it means to speak and write the language  correctly, effectively, and in an engaging manner