I Categories of the Finite Verbs

The Voice (Active, Passive): expresses relations of an action, its agent and object (an agent does an action (the Active Voice); an action is done over the agent or at the object (the Passive Voice)).

For example:

A carpenter made a table (AV). The table is made of silver (PV)

The Mood (Indicative (expresses a statement), Subjunctive/Conditional (expresses a condition), Imperative (expresses an order)).

For example:

Struggle for study enables you to develop (Indicative Mood). You can develop (IM).

If you had warned him beforehand, he would not had made that stupid mistake (Conditional Mood). May you be happy together (Subjunctive Mood). I wish you were here (SM).

Behave yourself, or else! (Imperative Mood) Don’t ask such ridiculous questions! (IM)

The Person (a defective category): expresses the relations of a verb and a concrete Person. The formal index (the suffix -s/-es) has been still kept only to express the relations of a verb and the 3^rd Person Singular in the Present Tenses.

For example:

She has been living here for ages (BUT I have been…). He lives happily (BUT We live happily)

The Number (a defective category): expresses the relations of a verb and the Singular Number of the 3^rd Person in the Present Tenses. The formal index is the suffix -s/-es.

For example: look #3

The verb be also changes its forms in accordance with the Number in Present and Past

Tenses.

For example:

He/she is the best driver I’ve ever met. You/we/they are the best drivers… I am the best driver…

He/she/it/I was there last year. You/we/they were there last year.

The Kind/the Aspect: specifies a character of action in the elapsed time (expresses a form of committing an action without being named in the word but completing the Lexical Meaning of it).

There are the Perfective Aspect and the Imperfective Aspect.

Grammatically Limited (Transitive) verbs refer to the Perfective Aspect and Unlimited (Intransitive) verbs – to the Imperfective Aspect.

For example, the following verbs refer to:

a) the Perfective Aspect: to become (famous), to catch (a ball), to find (the key)

b) the Imperfective Aspect: to walk, to sleep, to come, etc. She slept, then walked and finally came.

The Time (Tenses) is the leading category and makes the Aspect/the Kind subordinate. The category of Tense expresses relation of an action to a moment of speech (a point of correlation of the Tense-forms). An action can:

1) Coincide with the moment of speech (Present Time/Tenses);

2) Precede the moment of speech (Past Time/Tenses);

3) Be thought as a planned, arranged, supposed after the moment of speech action (Future Time/Tenses)

The Aspect of Grammar Time. In each kind of Time the verb can take the form of an appropriate Aspect:

1) Indefinite (usually done). The Aspect can express:

a) a definite finished action

For example:

I met him yesterday.

b) a number of actions in a sequence

For example:

She gets up, washes, dresses and drinks her coffee at 8 every morning.

c) not finished action, the attention is concentrated at the fact that the action happened

For example:

She drank coffee noisily.

2) Continuous (in longevity/duration at the moment of speech). The Aspect emphasizes the significance of the very process and its temporality, duration.

For example:

She was working when you phoned. She is sleeping now, be quiet. We will be flying to Paris on the fifth of October.

3) Perfect (completed by the moment of speech);The Aspect expresses the completeness of an action and usually emphasizes the result of it.

For example:

She will have graduated from university by the summer, 2010. Look at her! She has cut her hair short!

4) Perfect Continuous (having been in certain duration up to the moment of speech).The Aspect express the completeness of unrolling an action and emphasizes its longevity.

For example:

We had been listening to him for ages before he finally stopped. You have been doing odds jobs since the morning.

The collision of Time and Aspect results in Grammatical Tense (12 in number).