Forms of Verbs

There are five forms of verbs. Apart from this, there are regular and irregular forms of verbs. Let’s study them.

Base Form

The base form is the plain, infinitive or dictionary form.

Used when the verb’s action happens in the present and the subject is:

a plural noun, or
the first person pronoun (I, we), or
second person pronoun (you), or
third person plural pronoun (they).

$V_{S/ES}$ Form

The -s form of a verb is made from the base form of that verb.

Used when the verb’s action is in the present and the subject is third-person singular.

Third-person singular is:

a singular noun (examples: table, Geetanjali), or
a singular indefinite pronoun (examples: someone, everybody), or
personal pronoun (he, she, it).

So, Regular verbs in simple present tense have the same form for all persons and all numbers (singular or plural), except third person singular, which ends in -s.

Making $V_{S/ES}$ Form

Type 1

If the verb ends in -s, -ss, -sh, -ch, -x, -o or -z, then -es is added to make the third person singular present simple.

Base form	$V_{S/ES}$ Form
catch	catches
pass	passes
wish	wishes
fix	fixes
go	goes

Type 2

consonant + y → we change y to i and add -es

try - tries

Type 3

In all other cases we just add -s

eat - eats

The past simple of regular verbs ends in -ed for all persons and numbers.

Past and Past Participle forms

Based on how past and past participle forms of a verb are formed, they have been divided into two types – Regular and Irregular verbs.

Let’s see some examples of regular and irregular verbs

Regular Verbs

Type 1

Most of the Regular verbs form their past tense and past participle by adding ed to the verb’s base form.

Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
walk	walked	walked
jump	jumped	jumped
paint	painted	painted

Type 2

If the base form already ends in -e, then to make the past form and the past participle form we just add -d.

Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
agree	agreed	agreed
like	liked	liked
die	died	died

The final -e is not used in the -ing form.

Type 3

If the base form ends in a consonant plus -y, then to make the past form and the past participle form we just change -y to -ied.

Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
carry	carried	carried
study	studied	studied
fry	fried	fried

The -y ending does not change in the -ing form.

Iregular Verbs

There is no definite rule as such when it comes to forming past tense and past participle forms of irregular verbs.

Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
sit	sat	sat
ring	rang	rung
come	came	come
cut	cut	cut

We distinguish three types of irregular verbs:

Verbs in which all three forms are the same (e.g. cut - cut - cut)
Verbs in which two of the three forms are the same (e.g. sit - sat - sat)
Verbs in which all three forms are different (e.g. ring - rang - rung)

Type 1: All three forms are the same

Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
bet	bet	bet
cost	cost	cost
hit	hit	hit
hurt	hurt	hurt

Type 2: Two of the forms are the same

There are 3 possibilities here:

Base Form and Past Tense Form are the same
Base Form and Past Participle Form are the same
Past Tense Form and Past Participle Form are the same

Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
beat	beat	beaten
bend	bent	bent
come	came	come
bring	brought	brought

Type 3: All three forms are different

Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
be	was/were	been
begin	began	begun
break	broke	broken
drive	drove	driven

The only verb with more than 5 forms is ‘be’.

That’s because it has different forms for different persons in case of Simple Present and Simple Past tenses.

The verb ‘be’ has 3 present tense forms: am, is, are (all other verbs have one form).
I am, She/He/It is, You/We/They are
The verb ‘be’ has 2 past tense forms: was, were (all other verbs have one form).
I/She/He/It was, You/We/They were
The verb ‘be’ has 1 past participle form: been (other verbs have one or two past participle forms).
The verb ‘be’ has 1 present participle form: being.
The verb ‘be’ does not have any $V_{s/es}$ form.

Alternative past participle form

There are certain verbs with two distinct past participle ($V_3$) forms. In such cases, one form is usually used as an adjective form.

Here’s a list of the verbs that have an alternative past participle form (generally ending in ‘en’), which can only be used adjectivally, e.g. Spoken English, Revised edition, Written document.

Base Form	Usual Past Participle	Adjectival Past Participle
drink	drunk	drunken
learn	learnt	learned
prove	proved	proven
shear	sheared	shorn

Compare the following:

Workers have loaded the trucks with bamboos.
Trees were laden with fruits.

He has proved it.
It’s a proven fact.

Present tense ($V_1$ /base form and $V_{e/es}$ form) and Past tense ($V_2$) form can function as main verb in a sentence.

I drink milk every night. (drink - $V_1$)
She works at the factory. (works - $V_{e/es}$)
He opened the door of the car. (opened - $V_2$)

Present form of the verb or first form, expresses the simple and future present tense (for future tense we use modal verb + $V_1$, e.g. will play). Similarly, the past form of the verb, or the second form, expresses the simple past tense (also called the past indefinite tense).

Past participle ($V_3$) and Present participle ($V_4$/$V_{ing}$) form cannot function as the main verb alone. They are non-finite verbs and so they need helping verbs ‘have’ and ‘be’ (i.e. finite verbs) to function as the main verb in a sentence. $V_3$ and $V_4$ will always be the non-finite part of any verb phrase.

I have given one week’s notice. (have – helping verb; given - $V_3$)
They were playing a piano. (were – helping verb; playing – $V_4$)

While making passive voice too, past participles need ‘be’, i.e. be + past participle.

However, Past participles can function as an adjective too. And when acting as an adjective, they do not need a helping verb.

Also, as we saw earlier, some Past participles ($V_3$) have a dedicated form for working as an adjective. That is, they have two forms:

one form is used while they are part of a verb phrase, and
another form is used when they function as an adjective in a sentence.

We will learn more about using these various forms of verbs to make different tenses in the tenses module.

Extra Books and Tools

If you prefer to learn via books, or want some good English Grammar books for reference purposes, you may read this article which enlists some of the books recommended by us.

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Last updated on Apr 8, 2023