क्रिया (Verb)

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VERB — The Engine of Every Sentence

🚀 The Hook

Remove the verb from any sentence and watch it die. "Ravi ___ the ball." Nothing happens. No action, no state, no meaning. The verb is the only part of speech that can stand alone as a complete sentence — "Go!" "Stop!" "Run!" — and verbs are a heavily tested grammar topic in SSC, Banking and Railway exams. Master the verb, and you have mastered the skeleton of English.

🎯 Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

1. Identify main verbs, auxiliary verbs and their forms (V1–V5) instantly.
2. Apply Subject–Verb Agreement rules even when long phrases separate subject and verb.
3. Choose the correct tense using time markers and context.
4. Handle tricky cases: collective nouns, indefinite pronouns, "each/every", "neither…nor".
5. Spot the examiner's favourite traps in under 15 seconds.

1. What Exactly Is a Verb?

A verb is a word that expresses an action (run, write, think), an occurrence (happen, become) or a state of being (is, seem, remain).

Every grammatically complete sentence must contain a verb. Even "She is happy" has one — *is* — because verbs don't only "do"; they also "are".

The Five Forms of a Verb (V1–V5):

🧠 Active Recall: Without looking up, write V1–V5 of *eat, take, begin, teach*. Which form is used after "has/have/had"? (Answer: V3.)

2. Main Verbs vs Auxiliary Verbs

• Main verb — carries the real meaning: *She sings beautifully.*
• Auxiliary (helping) verb — supports the main verb to show tense, voice or mood.

Three families of auxiliaries:

1. Be — am, is, are, was, were, been, being → continuous tenses & passive voice.
2. Have — have, has, had → perfect tenses.
3. Do — do, does, did → questions, negatives, emphasis.

Modal auxiliaries — can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must, ought to, need, dare, used to. Most modals are followed by V1 (bare infinitive): *He must go* (never "must goes" / "must to go"). But ought to and used to are followed by the *to*-infinitive: *He ought to go* / *He used to go there.*

🧠 Active Recall: In "The letter has been written by her", identify all auxiliaries and the main verb. (Auxiliaries: has, been; main verb: written.)

3. Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

• Transitive verb — needs an object to complete its meaning: *She bought a book.* (Bought *what*? — a book.)
• Intransitive verb — complete without an object: *The baby sleeps.* (Sleeps *what*? — nothing; the question makes no sense.)

⚠️ Only transitive verbs can be changed into passive voice. "The baby was slept" is impossible.

Some verbs work both ways: *He runs a shop* (transitive) / *He runs fast* (intransitive).

4. Subject–Verb Agreement — The Heart of This Chapter

The golden principle: the verb agrees with its subject in number and person.

• Singular subject → singular verb (V5 in present): *Ravi plays.*
• Plural subject → plural verb (V1): *Ravi and Mohan play.*

The examiner's whole game is to hide the real subject from you. Train your eye to find the subject first, ignore everything in between, then choose the verb.

*The quality of these mangoes is excellent.* — Subject is "quality" (singular), not "mangoes". The phrase "of these mangoes" is a decoy.

🧠 Active Recall: Choose: "The leader, along with his followers, (was/were) arrested." (Answer: *was* — "along with" phrases don't change the subject.)

5. Tense — Time + Form

Tense = when the action happens + how it is viewed (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous). That gives 12 tense forms, built from just three time zones:

Time markers are your clues:

• *since, for, already, yet, just, never* → Perfect tense
• *yesterday, ago, last year, in 2010* → Simple Past (never Present Perfect!)
• *now, at present, look!, listen!* → Present Continuous
• *tomorrow, next week, soon* → Future

⚠️ Classic error: *"I have seen him yesterday."* ❌ → *"I saw him yesterday."* ✔ (A finished past time marker kills the Present Perfect.)

🧠 Active Recall: Why is "I am knowing the answer" wrong? (Answer: *know* is a stative verb — see below.)

6. Stative Verbs — Verbs That Refuse "-ing"

Some verbs describe states, not actions, and normally do not take the continuous form:

• Mind: know, believe, understand, remember, forget, mean
• Emotion: love, hate, like, prefer, want, wish
• Senses: see, hear, smell, taste (when involuntary)
• Possession: have (own), own, belong, consist

*"I know the answer"* ✔ — *"I am knowing"* ❌

But note: *"I am thinking about the plan"* ✔ (thinking = mental activity in progress), while *"I think it is wrong"* ✔ (think = opinion).

🧠 Mnemonic — "SHAPE" for Stative Verbs

Senses – Having (possession) – Affection (love/hate) – Perceiving mind (know, believe) – Emotions (want, wish)

👉 *"Stative verbs have SHAPE — they never run (no -ing)!"*

⚠️ EXAMINER'S TRAP — Read Before Any Exam

Trap 1 — The Intervening Phrase: *"One of my friends have gone to Delhi."* ❌ The subject is "One", not "friends". Correct: has. After *one of / each of / either of / neither of*, the noun is plural but the verb is singular.

Trap 2 — The Sound-Right Trap: *"The news are shocking."* ❌ *News* sounds plural but is singular: is. Same family: physics, mathematics, economics, innings, gallows.

Trap 3 — The Proximity Confusion: With *neither…nor / either…or / not only…but also*, the verb agrees with the nearer subject: *"Neither the teacher nor the students were present."* Don't let the first subject fool you.

🔁 LINGUISTIC BRIDGE — Hindi vs English

Rule of thumb: Hindi uses one verb form where English demands tense precision. Always ask: *Is the action finished? Is the time finished?*

📋 Summary Table — Verb at a Glance

🕐 Review after 2 days

Close this book and write from memory: (1) the five verb forms of *go* and *write*, (2) three stative verbs, (3) the rule for "one of + plural noun", (4) why "I have seen him yesterday" is wrong. If any answer hesitates, re-read only that section — then attempt Practice Set 1.