Intransitive verbs do not require any object for the completion of their meaning: The sun is rising.

There are many words in English that can function as both transitive and intransitive:

e.g. Tom is writing a letter. (transitive) – Tom writes clearly. (intransitive)

Who has broken the vase? (transitive) – Glass breaks easily. (intransitive)

From both semantic and syntactic points of view verbs may be used as notional words and as functional words. Notional verbs always have their own lexical meaning and have an independent function in the sentence (He knew what he was thinking. During the war he lived in London).

When a verb is used as a functional word, it may either preserve or lose its lexical meaning. But even if it has a lexical meaning of its own, the latter is of a specific character and the verb cannot have an independent syntactic function in the sentence – it is always connected with some other word. Here belong modal verbs and link-verbs (глаголы связки).

A modal verb is always accompanied by an infinitive – together they form a compound modal verbal predicate (She couldn’t do anything under the circumstances).

A link-verb is followed by a predicative; together they form a compound nominal predicate (He was a middle-aged man. She looked very tired. It became very hot by noon).

Sometimes a verb entirely loses its lexical meaning and is called an auxiliary verb (вспомогательный глагол). They are not numerous, they are seven; to do, to be, to have, shall, will, should, would. Together with a notional verb an auxiliary verb forms analytical forms (Do you know him well enough to trust him? I have known the young lady all her life).

Polysemantic verbs (многозначные глаголы) may serve as notional verbs as well as functional words. The verb ‘to be’ may be used as a notional, auxiliary, modal and link-verb.

e.g. The book is on the table. (notional) He is reading. (auxiliary)

She is young. (link-verb) We are to meet at Peter’s. (modal)

The verb ‘to have’ may be used as a notional, auxiliary and modal verb.

e.g. She has a nice cottage in the country. (notional)

I had to reconsider my position. (modal)

What has happened? You are so pale. (auxiliary)

The verb to do may be used as a notional and an auxiliary verb.

e.g. What are you doing here? (notional)

Do you smoke? ( auxiliary)

There are some other polysemantic verbs in English such as ‘to get’, ‘to grow’, ‘to turn’, etc.

Morphological Categories of the Verb

The verb has the morphological categories of person, number, tense, aspect, perfect, voice and mood.

The category of person expresses the relation of the action and its doer to the speaker, showing whether the action is performed by the speaker (the 1st person), someone addressed by the speaker (the 2nd person) or someone / something other than the speaker or the person addressed (the 3rd person).

The category of number shows whether the action is performed by one or more than one persons or non-persons. For the simple present tense of the verb to be there are three forms;

the 1st person singular – am,

the 3rd person singular – is,

the form for all persons plural – are.

The category of tense expresses the relationship between the time of the action and the time of speaking. There are three tenses in English – the present tense, the past tense, and the future tense which refer actions to present, past or future time.

The category of aspect shows the way or the manner in which an action is performed, i.e. whether the action is perfective (совершенное), imperfective (несовершенное), momentary (мгновенное, однократное), durative (длитель­ное), etc.