Verb: the Category of Mood

The Infinitive is intermediate between the verb and the noun. It combines the properties of the verb with those of the noun. It is considered as the head-form of the whole paradigm of the verb.

The Participle

The Participle is intermediate between the verb and the adjective and adverb.

The Present Participle is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb and those of the adjective and adverb, serving as qualifying processual name. In its outer form the present participle is wholly homonymous with the gerund and distinguishes the same grammatical categories.

Like all the verbals it has no categorical time distinctions, and the attribute "present" in its conventional name is not immediately explanatory; it is used from force of tradition.

Past Participle is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb with those of the adjective, serving as the qualifying processual name. It is a single form, having no paradigm of its own. It conveys implicitly the categorial meaning of the perfect and the passive. The main functions in the sentence are those of the attribute and the predicative.

The gerund

The gerund is the non- finite form of the verb, which like the infinitive combines the properties of the verb with those of the noun. Similar to the infinitive, gerund serves as me verbal name of a process, but its substantive quality is more strongly pronounced than that of the Infinitive.

A question might arise, why the Infinitive and not the gerund is taken as the head-form of the verbal paradigm?

The gerund cannot perform the function of the paradigmatic head-form for a number of reasons. In the first place, it is more detached from the finite verb than the infinitive semantically. Then it is a suffixal form, which makes it less generalized. Finally, it is less definite, being subject to easy neutralization in its opposition. Hence the gerund is no rival of the infinitive in the paradigmatic head-form function.

The formal sign of the gerund is wholly homonymous with that of the present participle: it is the suffix ”-ing” added to the grammatically leading element. Like the infinitive the gerund is a categorially changeable form. It distinguishes the aspective category of retrospective coordination (perfect in opposition), and the category of voice (passive in opposition). Consequently the categorical paradigm of the gerund includes 4 forms: the simple, the perfect active, the simple passive the perfect passive.

Modal Verbs

Modal verbs express the attitude: ability, obligation, permission, advisability, probability. Modal Verbs are defective in forms. They do not differentiate the category of person, number, voice, aspect, perfect, no future tense no verbals. They have lost many of their categorial meanings.

Modal verbs or modals are concerned with our relationship with someone else. Modal have 2 major functions which can be defined as primary and secondary.

Primary function of Modal Verbs. In their primary function MVs closely reflect the meanings:

A) of ability (can/could). / can lift 25 kg/I can type.

B) of permission (may/might). You may leave early.

C) of prediction (will/would) - (shall/should). It will rain soon.D) Of escapable obligation or duty (should/ought to). You should (ought to) do as you are told.

E) Of inescapable obligation. You must be quiet. F) Of absence of obligation. You needn't wait.

Secondary function of MVs

In their secondary function nine of modal auxiliaries can be used to express the degree of certainly/uncertainly a speaker fuels about a possibility. They can be arranged on a scale from the greatest uncertainty (might) to the greatest certainty (must).