MORPHOLOGICAL FORMS OF FINITE VERBS

For the purposes of abbreviation we refer to the verb form in (i) as the "s" form, and the form in (ii) as the "d" form. You will of course recognise these as the present and past simple tenses. When these tenses are formed using only the main verb, as in these examples, the finite element is expressed in the inflected form which the main verb takes. Thus the "s" and "d" inflections are the morphological realisations of the finite element.

There is one important difference between the present and past simple forms in that in the present the principle of number concordance applies, so that in fact the "s" form only occurs with subjects which are third person singular. For all the other types of subject (first and second person singular and all plurals), the uninflected base form of the verb is used.

We can therefore summarise the finite verb forms for the present and past simple tenses as follows, which thus shows two finite forms for the present, and one for the past:-

* The single exception to this is of course the verb BE, which has a system of three choices in the present tense, and is also the only verb in English which has a system of subject concord for the past tense. For the latter there are two choices. The whole system may be shown as follows:-

Primary tense systems for the verb BE.

The non-finite forms of the verb will be described later, but we can note here that just as there are three finite forms, so there are also three non-finite forms. These are the "to" form, also known as the infinitive, which is simply the base form preceded by the particle "to", and also the two participles, the "n" and "ing" forms. Note that we distinguish between the non-finite "n" form and the finite "d" form, although of course with most English verbs these two forms are morphologically identical.

In (a) "worked" is finite, and forms the past simple tense, whereas in (b) "worked" is the non-finite final element in the verbal group "has worked", in which only the initial element "has" is finite.

The difference between the "n" and "d" forms may be seen in the irregular verbs, as in the following:-

For interrogatives and complex groups such as (b) and (d) above which include an auxiliary the expression of tense is the function of the operator. The operators responsible for signifying tense are formed from the verbs BE, HAVE, and DO. These all function independently as main verbs, and have their own "s", "d" and "base" forms which are used to indicate tense accordingly, and are identical whether these verbs function as operators or as main verbs.

In addition to these operators there is also the auxiliary verb USED TO which is only found in the past form.

(i) Operators which indicate past time are DID, WAS/WERE, HAD and USED TO.

(ii) Operators signifying the present are DO/DOES, AM/IS/ARE, HAVE/HAS.

* The modal verbs COULD and NEEDED may also be used to indicate past time, but since they primarily express the modal notions of ability, possibility and necessity, these will be discussed in the next section which deals with modality.

Here are some examples of verbal groups in which the finite element is indicated by the symbol "f", and non-finite elements by the symbol "b", and the verbal group has been underlined.

Only the first element in the verbal group is finite, all the other forms, whether auxiliary or main verb, are non-finite. Thus while a verbal group may only contain one finite element, there may be two or more non-finite elements.

The introduction of the auxiliary verb "used to" into the discussion brings us to the point where we should now consider the functioning of the other modal verbs. We observed earlier that tense and modality are closely connected, and we have seen that in fact modal auxiliaries also function in establishing time reference, as with "used to". This time reference is most obviously apparent in the case of the modal auxiliary WILL. This will therefore be a convenient starting point for our discussion of the modal verbs, and we shall therefore deal with these verbs, including the formation of the future tense, under the general topic of modality.

TENSE	VERB FORM
present	"s", "base"
past	"d"

e.g.	(i) Bill works in a bank.
	(ii) Bill worked in a bank.

e.g.	(a) He worked at the university.
	(b) He has worked at the university.

e.g.	(c) He broke the vase.
	(d) He has broken the vase.