kinds of verb

[r_a]

hello

I want to know what is the difference between helping verb and auxiliary verb and modal verb ?


my second question is what is the difference between linking verb and stative verb?Is it right to say that all of linking verbs are stative verb ?but it's not right to say all of stative verbs are linking verb?
I'm confused.please explain it

thanks

[r_a]

hello
Mr.Joe Carillo

please answer my question
I'm waiting for your answer
thank you very much

[Joe Carillo]

Thank you for reminding me. I wrote my answers to your questions the other day but overlooked posting them. So here goes…

Your questions actually require a full review course in basic English grammar, but I’ll try to answer them the best I could to alleviate your confusion.
 
A helping verb and an auxiliary verb are one and the same—a verb that’s used in conjunction with a main verb to express shades of time, ability, degree, or conditionality. A helping verb always comes before the main verb or lexical verb in a sentence. In English, the helping verbs or auxiliary verbs are “will,” “shall,” “may,” “might,” “can,” “could,” “must,” “ought to,” “should,” “would,” “used to,” and “need.” Combining one or more of them with a main verb produces a verb phrase, as “will come” in “He will come tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.”

To evoke a precise meaning or nuance, a main verb can use more than one helping verb, as in this sentence: “The company has been selling the new product for a month now.” Here, “selling” uses the helping verb “has” (functionally called a verbal auxiliary) and the helping verb “been” (the past participle of “be,” also functioning as a verbal auxiliary) to form the present perfect progressive tense.

Now, a modal verb is a type of helping or auxiliary verb that’s used with a main verb to indicate its so-called modality, a grammatical indication that the action in that verb doesn’t denote a simple fact but only the likelihood of it happening or just the ability, permission, and obligation to do it. For instance, the modal verbs “can,” “could,” “have to,” “must,” “might,” and “should” indicate various degrees of intent or likelihood when used with the main verb “come” in the following sentences:

Mild intent: “We can come tomorrow if you wish.” Conditional: “We could come tomorrow if weather permits.” Mandatory: “We have to come tomorrow for the finals.” Absolute obligation: “We must come tomorrow no matter what.” Weak intent: “We might come tomorrow if we feel like it.” Sense of obligation: “We should come tomorrow as we promised.”

Now to your question on the difference between a linking verb and a stative verb:

In English, a verb is classified as either an action verb—also called a dynamic verb—or a stative verb. Action verbs are, of course, those that describe actions or events that happen, like “smile” in “She smiled at me” and “fell” in “The rain fell in torrents.” On the other hand, stative verbs are those that show a state and not an action, like “know,” “believe,” “appear,” “seem,” and “consist.” For instance, in the sentence “A square consists of four sides of equal length,” the verb “consists” is stative because it denotes composition rather than action.

You asked if it’s right to say that all linking verbs are stative verbs. In English, this isn’t always the case. For instance, the linking verb “be” is stative in the sentence “The sky is blue” but dynamic in “She is having a tantrum” and “They are arguing.” In the case of the linking verb “have,” it is stative in “They have a yacht” but dynamic in “They are having a conference.”

In contrast, it’s absolutely correct to say that all stative verbs are linking verbs. In denoting a state, they all serve to link a subject with its predicate, as in “I know her well” and “She appears confident.”

[r_a]

hello
thank you very much for your perfect and helpful explanation

but i have a question
you said "all stative verbs are linking verbs"
for example you say in this examples 'think" and "have" are linking verb because they are stative:
I think that coffee is great
I have a car

but I think it's not right because i wrote this sentence that: "How do you tell when they are action verbs and when they are linking verbs?
If you can substitute am, is, or are and the sentence still sounds logical, you have a linking verb on your hands. "

But in this examples it's not possible to substitute am is are 

would you please explain it that think and have here are linking verb because they are stative?


my second question is that you say in this sentence "They are arguing " are is linking verb .but it's not correct according definition of linking verbs because "are" doesn't have any connection role.

please explain them.I need your help
thank you very much

[Joe Carillo]

I stand by my statement that all stative verbs are linking verbs. I say this based on the definition of a stative verb as a verb expressing a state, condition, or relation, and, in contrast, on the definition of a linking verb as a verb (like “be,” “become,” “feel,” or “seem”) that links a subject with its predicate.

However, I agree with the neat grammar rule you invoked for distinguishing between action verbs and linking verbs—that if “am,” “is,” or “are” can be substituted to the verb and the sentence still sounds logical, that verb would be a linking verb. Indeed, in the sentence “We feel saddened by her decision,” we can replace the verb “feel” with “are” and the sentence will remain logical: “We are saddened by her decision.” The same will be true if we replace “seem” with “is” in “She seems confused”: “She is confused.”
 
Why then wasn’t it possible for you to substitute “am,” “is,” or “are” to the verbs “think” and “have” in these sentences: “I think that coffee is great” and “I have a car”? It’s because “think” and “have” are functioning in these sentences not as stative verbs but as action verbs—“think” as a transitive verb in the sense of “to regard as” and “have” as a transitive verb in the sense of “to hold in possession.” (Recall that transitive verbs are action verbs that require a direct object.) Since they aren’t functioning as stative verbs, “think” and “have” can neither be linking verbs. This is why they fail in the test you used for determining whether a verb is functioning as a linking verb.

I’m sure that this corollary question will now come to mind: Could “think” and “have” variably function as stative verbs? Not “think,” which is an out-and-out action verb. In the case of “have,” however, it will be stative in its role as an auxiliary verb—a helping verb—in sentences like “They have seen the light.”

As to your last question, “are” in “They are arguing” connects the subject “they” with the predicate “arguing.” That makes “are” definitely a linking verb by the very definition of this term.

[r_a]

thank you for your helpful explanation
but I'm confused about stative verbs.
you said my examples are not stative verbs but I found them from this site :
http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/stative-verbs.html
Is this site wrong???
Is it right to say: I'm having a car.
and also we have another verbs like:hate -love -... that are always stative but we can't substitute them with am-is -are    
example:I love birds.but I'm not birds

and another question: Are all of linking verbs  intransitive?
and also all of stative verbs are intransive or not ?because of love and hate and ...

would you please explain it...I'm confused

thank you very much

[r_a]

hello
I'm really confused.please answer my question about stative verb and about my previews post.
thank you very much.
I really need your help

[Joe Carillo]

To fully clarify matters about how verbs work in the English language, we need to go back to the basic definition of the verb and make a full-dress review of the various kinds of verbs.

Recall that a verb is a word that expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being, and it can be any of three types—transitive, intransitive, and linking.

Transitive verbs. Transitive verbs are those that have the ability to pass on their action to something that can receive that action, and they can be any of three types:

1. One-place transitive verb. This type of transitive verb requires only a direct object to work properly. Examples are the verbs “receive,” “deliver,” and “damage.” See how they work in the following sentences: “The accused received the summons.” Typhoons damage infrastructure.” “The judge pronounced the verdict.” There’s a simple test to find out if a verb is a one-place transitive verb—a sentence that uses it becomes nonsensical if the direct object of that verb is removed:  “The accused received.” “Typhoons damage.” “The judge pronounced.” Note that each of these sentences hang in mid-air with an incomplete thought—a clear sign that they are not complete sentences.

2. Vg two-place transitive verb. This type of transitive verb requires a direct object and may also take an indirect object. (The term “Vg two-place transitive verb” used here is short for the linguistic label “two-place transitive like give”; the “g” in “Vg” stands for give.) Examples are the verbs “buy,” “bring,” “serve.” See how they work in the following sentences: “He buys her diamonds.” “She brings him clients.” “The sheriff served Joanna the subpoena.” In the case of Vg two-place transitive verbs, an indirect object is optional. The sentences will work perfectly even with only the direct objects around: “He buys diamonds.” “She brings clients.” “The sheriff served the subpoena.”

3. Vc two-place transitive verb. In this type of transitive verb, the action actually takes place within the subject or doer of the action, or is done to the subject itself, then is transmitted to the direct object. (The term “Vc two-place transitive verb” is short for “two-place transitive like consider”; the “c” in “Vc” stands for consider.) Examples are the verbs “consider,” “make,” and “believe.” See how they work in the following sentences: “They considered the rebellion a lost cause.” “Factual errors like this make the judge extremely suspicious.” “The beauty queen’s detractors believe her legal victory to be a fluke.”

Intransitive verbs. Intransitive verbs are those that that can’t pass on their action to anything in the sentence. Because an intransitive verb doesn’t have the power to transmit its action to a direct object, this verb generally dissipates that action in itself. Examples are the intransitive verbs “go,” “arrive,” “disappear,” and “appear.” They can only function in objectless sentence constructions like the following: “The case file goes missing.” “The plaintiffs arrived.” “The witness disappeared.” “The sheriff appeared.” One distinct peculiarity of a sentence that uses an intransitive verb is that it can’t be constructed into a passive-voice sentence. We can’t say or write the following sentences: “Goes missing the case file.” “Arrived the plaintiffs.” “Disappeared the witness.” “Appeared the sheriff.” In each case, the sentence doesn’t work because there’s no subject or doer of the action to begin with.

Linking verbs. Also known as copular verbs, linking verbs don’t act on an object but simply make English sentences flow correctly and smoothly. Their primary function is to connect the subject to a complement, which we will remember is the word or group of words that complete the predicate. (As I observed in my book English Plain and Simple, English without linking verbs may still work but the language will be like a paraplegic dragging itself around a room.)

Linking verbs are of two kinds:

1. Current linking verb. This kind of linking verb indicates a state of the subject at a particular moment in time (whether in the past, present, or future). Examples of current linking verbs “appear,” “be,” “feel,” “lie,” “look,” “remain,” “seem,” “smell,” “sound,” “stay,” and “taste.” See how they work in the following sentences: “Adele appeared at peace when she testified in court.” “Her testimony seems fishy.” “The perfume smelled good that time, but not anymore.”

2. Resulting linking verb. This kind of linking verb indicates that in a particular sentence, the role of the verb complement is a result of the process described in the verb. Examples of resulting linking verbs are “become,” “get,” “grow,” “fall,” “prove,” “run,” and “turn.” See how they work in the following sentences: “The witness became a suspect.” “Justine fell in love with her defense lawyer.” “The legal strategy proved very useful.”

Distinction between action verbs and stative verbs

Now, in English grammar, a verb can also be classified as either a dynamic verb or a stative verb.

Dynamic verb. It is one that describes actions or events that happen in a particular moment in time, like the verb “break” in “He broke her heart that night” (the verb “broke” here is transitive, with “her heart” as its direct object) and “The storm raged all night (the verb “raged” here is intransitive, with no direct object). We can see here that a dynamic verb can either be a transitive or an intransitive verb—but not a linking verb. So long as the verb describes an action or event in time, it’s a dynamic verb regardless of whether that action is done to a direct object (in the case of transitive verbs) or that action can’t be passed to an object in the sentence such that the verb dissipates that action in itself (in the case of intransitive verbs).

Stative verb. It is one that shows a state or condition and not an action, like the verb “know” in “She knows algebra” (the verb “knows” here is transitive, with “algebra” as its direct object); the verb “believe” in “They believe in miracles” (the verb “believe” here is used intransitively, with no direct object); and the verb “is” in “He is reliable” (the verb “is” here is a linking verb, simply connecting the subject “he” to the predicate “reliable”). We can see here that a stative verb can be transitive, intransitive, or linking.

So what is it that normally distinguishes a stative verb from a dynamic verb? It is that a stative verb doesn’t work in a grammatically proper way in the continuous tenses. For instance, this is what happens when we use the stative verb “know” in the present-continuous sentence “She is knowing the truth” and the stative verb “believe” in the present-continuous sentence “They are believing in miracles.” Indeed, bad English results when we attempt to make a stative verb work dynamically, in much the same way that the McDonald’s colloquial slogan “I’m loving it,” for the sake of strong advertising recall, deliberately violates good grammar by using the stative verb “love” dynamically in the present continuous. (The grammatically correct construction for that slogan is, of course, “I love it.”)

Confusion over stative verbs and dynamic verbs

Now we are ready to clarify your confusion over stative verbs and dynamic verbs. The confusion arises because depending on their usage, some verbs can be both stative and dynamic. As pointed out by the very website you cited, PerfectEnglishGrammar.com, several of the verbs it listed as usually stative can also be dynamic. For instance, the verb “be” is stative in “She is nice” (being nice is part of her personality) but dynamic in “She is being nice” (she is making an effort to be nice). In the case of the verb “think,” it is stative in “I think she’s lovely” (an opinion that she is lovely) but dynamic in “I am thinking of her chances of winning the beauty contest” (the act of considering that particular idea).

Offhand, then, we can say that a reliable test of finding out if a verb is stative through and through is when it can’t be used in a sentence dynamically. One such verb is “belong,” which is stative in “That laptop belongs to me.” We can’t use it dynamically in a sentence like, say, “That laptop is belonging to me,” where “is belonging” is in the present continuous tense. This means that “belong” can’t be used in the continuous tense at all—clear proof that it can only be a stative verb and never a dynamic one.

So my answer to your question on whether or not the PerfectEnglishGrammar.com is wrong, my answer is definitely a “No.” In fact, it categorically states that some verbs can be both stative and dynamic, and it shows several examples that this is indeed the case. And to this specific question of yours, on whether it is right to say “I’m having a car,” the answer is “Yes”—with the verb “having” in that sentence used dynamically in the sense of “getting” or “acquiring” a car.

Verbs like “hate” and “love” are not always stative

I must correct your impression that the verbs “hate” and “love” are always stative. For showing a state or condition, they are, of course, stative verbs in the following sentences: “She hates hypocrites.” “He loves crime novels.” But in the sentence “This morning, we hated the way she maltreated her subordinates,” the intransitive verb “hated” is definitely dynamic. And in this imperative sentence, “Love your neighbor!” the transitive verb “love” is definitely dynamic as well.

Also, you shouldn’t confuse stative verbs with linking verbs. Some stative verbs can be linking verbs, as the verb “feel” in “She feels sad,” in which case we can substitute “is” for it: “She is sad.” But the great majority of stative verbs are not linking verbs, as the verb “love” in “We love the color pink” and “have” in “They have a grudge against her.” (Obviously, we can’t replace “love” with “are” and say “We are the color pink,” and neither can we replace “have” with “are” and say “They are a grudge against her.”)

All linking verbs are intransitive verbs

By definition, linking verbs don’t act on an object but simply make English sentences flow correctly and smoothly. That makes all linking verbs intransitive verbs, which by definition are verbs that can’t pass on their action to anything in the sentence—meaning that they can’t act on an object at all.

Not all stative verbs are intransitive verbs

As I explained earlier in this posting, a verb is stative if it shows a state or condition rather than an action, as the verb “believe” in “He believes in miracles.” Here, apart from being stative, “believe” is intransitive because it doesn’t pass on its action to an object in the sentence. The verb “prefer” is likewise stative in the sentence “Gentlemen prefer blondes,” but the verb “prefer” acts on the noun “blondes” as direct object, so here “prefer” is obviously a transitive verb. (The verb "prefer" is an example of the Vc two-place transitive type of verb as described earlier, in which the action actually takes place within the subject or doer of the action, then is transmitted to the direct object, which in this case is the noun "blondes.")

Clearly then, in answer to your last question, not all stative verbs are intransitive verbs. A stative verb will be intransitive if it doesn’t have a direct object, and will be transitive if it acts on one.

[Joe Carillo]

I think I myself contributed to r_a’s confusion about verbs when, in reply to a question he raised in a posting last April 20, I made this erroneous generalization and reiterated it in a subsequent posting last May 5:

“In contrast, it’s absolutely correct to say that all stative verbs are linking verbs. In denoting a state, they all serve to link a subject with its predicate, as in ‘I know her well’ and ‘She appears confident.’”

Let’s analyze this statement closely.

That some stative verbs could be linking verbs is clearly true in the case of the verbs “appear,” “seem,” and “look” as used in the following sentences: “She appears confident.” “She seems confident.” “She looks confident.” This is because in all three sentences, the verbs can be replaced with “is” (which, of course, is a form of “be”) and still make sense: “She is confident.” The sense verbs “smell,” “taste,” and “feel” are also evidently both stative and linking verbs in the following sentences: “The food smells fresh.” “The pastry tastes sweet.” “The fabric feels smooth.” This is because in all three sentences, the verbs can also be replaced with “is” and still make sense: “The food is fresh.” “The pastry is sweet.” “The fabric is smooth.”

But see what happens when the verbs “know,” “love,” and “believe,” are used statively in the following sentences: “She knows calculus.” “We love big French fries.” “They believe in second chances.” In “She knows calculus,” the verb “knows” is clearly not a linking verb but a transitive verb with “calculus” as its direct object. Likewise, in “We love big French fries,” the verb “loves” is clearly also not a linking verb but a transitive verb with “French fries” as its direct object. On the other hand, in “They believe in second chances,” the verb “believe” is clearly not a linking verb but an intransitive verb, which has no direct object. Not being linking verbs, the verbs “know,” “love,” and “believe” will fail in the linking verb test because they obviously can’t be replaced with “be” or its variants.

What this analysis is telling us is that, in fact, not all stative verbs are linking verbs. Some stative verbs could be linking verbs but others could be transitive or intransitive verbs depending on how they are used in a sentence. Indeed, what’s common with all stative verbs is only that they show a state or condition and not an action, and whether or not they are linking verbs as well can only be determined on a case-to-case basis.

[revee]

hello
thank you very much for your perfect and helpful explanation

but i have a question
you said "all stative verbs are linking verbs"
for example you say in this examples 'think" and "have" are linking verb because they are stative:
I think that coffee is great
I have a car

but I think it's not right because i wrote this sentence that: study abroad chile "How do you tell when they are action verbs and when they are linking verbs?
If you can substitute am, is, or are and the sentence still sounds logical, you have a linking verb on your hands. "

But in this examples it's not possible to substitute am is are 

would you please explain it that think and have here are linking verb because they are stative?


my second question is that you say in this sentence "They are arguing " are is linking verb .but it's not correct according definition of linking verbs because "are" doesn't have any connection role.

please explain them.I need your help
thank you very much

Thank you for replying in to this. I also had a problem with past participles last time and a little confusion. Now it is clear to me. Thanks.