0
Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Irregular verbs

I am currently writing a book on conjugation of irregular verbs. But I have a problem. There are some verbs which do not take the continuous form such as to mean, to know. There are other verbs which can't be conjugated in the third person (it) because they tend to have human feature like to think, to speak. I do not know what to do with these verbs. Shall I mention that they do not take 'ing' for example, or they can not be conjugated using (it)? Other verbs are mostly used in the passive form like 'to strew.' Anyway here is the list of verbs which I have problem with:
to backbite, to backside, to be, to befall, to bereave, to beseech, to beset, to bet, to bethink, to bid, to bless, to browbeat, to bust, to chide, to choose, to clap, to cleave, to colorbreed, to cost, to countershink, to crossbreed, to dare, to daydream, to disprove, to dream, to dwell, to enwind, to feel, to fling, to floodlight, to forbear, to forbid, to forecast, to gainsay, to gild, to gird, to hagride, to hamstring, to handwrite, to ken, to kneel, to know, to lade, to mean, to melt, to offset, to plead, to quit, to see, to sew, to share, to shear, to shoe, to shrive, to sightread, to slay, to slit, to smell, to sow, to speak, to spell, to spend, to spring, to stink, to strew, to string, to sublet, to swear, to sweat, to telecast, to tell, to think, to thrust, to tread, to troubleshoot, to typecast, to typeset, to understand, to waylay, to wed, to wet.
I am in need of your advice. Thank you very much in advance.
  

Top answer

Anonymous There are some verbs which do not take the continuous form such as to mean, to know. Label them "non-progressive" just like all the other books do. Anonymous There are other verbs which can't be conjugated in the third person (it) because they tend to have human feature like to think, to speak.

  • Anonymous There are some verbs which do not take the continuous form such as to mean, to know.
  • Label them "non-progressive" just like all the other books do.
  • Anonymous There are other verbs which can't be conjugated in the third person (it) because they tend to have human feature like to think, to speak.
  • You can leave it to the reader to be smart enough to know that objects don't think.
  • You can't get this specific because there are unexpected and unpredictable figurative turns of phrase that do come up occasionally, such as, She was very moved by the poem.
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

1 Answers
0
AnonymousThere are some verbs which do not take the continuous form such as to mean, to know.
Label them "non-progressive" just like all the other books do.
AnonymousThere are other verbs which can't be conjugated in the third person (it) because they tend to have human feature like to think, to speak.
You can leave it to th

Related Questions