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A verb (from Latin verbum 'word') is a word that generally conveys an action (bring, read, walk, run, learn), an occurrence (happen, become), or a state of being (be, exist, stand). In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive.
The coherence of the strong verb system is still present in modern German, Dutch, Icelandic and Faroese. For example, in German and Dutch, strong verbs are consistently marked with a past participle in -en, while weak verbs have a past participle in -t in German and -t or -d in Dutch. In English, however, the original regular strong ...
A strong inflection is a system of verb conjugation or noun/adjective declension which can be contrasted with an alternative system in the same language, which is then known as a weak inflection. The term strong was coined with reference to the Germanic verb , but has since been used of other phenomena in these and other languages, which may or ...
This development is very clearly attested in the later Germanic languages. Afrikaans is an extreme example, where almost all verbs follow the same conjugational pattern. English is also a strong example, where all weak verb classes have merged, many older strong verbs have become weak, and all other verbs are considered irregular relic formations.
German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation ().Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and anomalies do arise; however, textbooks for learners often class all strong verbs as irregular.
A verb may have either a first aorist or a second aorist: the distinction is like that between weak (try, tried) and strong verbs (write, wrote) in English.But the distinction can be better described by considering the second aorist as showing the actual verb stem when the present has a morph to designate present stem, like -σκ-, or reduplication with ι as in δίδωμι.
The first English grammar, Bref Grammar for English by William Bullokar, published in 1586, does not use the term "auxiliary" but says: All other verbs are called verbs-neuters-un-perfect because they require the infinitive mood of another verb to express their signification of meaning perfectly: and be these, may, can, might or mought, could, would, should, must, ought, and sometimes, will ...
Examples of dynamic verbs in English are 'to run', 'to hit', 'to intervene', 'to savour' and 'to go'. A striking feature of modern English is its limited use of the simple present tense of dynamic verbs. Generally, the tense is required to express an action taking place in the