Tracing the evolution of English verbs over 1,200 years -- from the Old English of “Beowulf” to the modern English of “The Princess Diaries” -- researchers have found that the majority of irregular ...

Modal verbs are words that change the meaning of other verbs. We use them to express if something is certain, likely, possible or impossible. Words like ‘could’, ‘would’, ‘may’, ‘can’, ‘must’, and ...

Sometimes you can guess the meaning of a phrasal verb because it is related to the main verb. Look at this example again. Shall we give away all the old books in the office? The meaning is clearly ...

It’s spring cleaning time — an opportunity to sweep out dust bunnies lurking in recesses of recent reading. Let’s start with various forms of disagreement between singular and plural elements in a ...

Although English-language verbs generally don’t inflect or change in form to agree with the subject in number, they do so in the present tense, third-person singular. In English grammar, in this ...

This question originally appeared on Quora. Answer by Thomas Wier, assistant professor of linguistics at the Free University of Tbilisi: Short Answer: Yes, but not in English. What do we mean by ...

There is a misconception that all verbs in a paragraph should be in the same tense. The choice of the appropriate verb tense depends on context and meaning.

The conventional grammar wisdom is that turning verbs into nouns — or what is termed “nominalization” in linguistics — is bad for the health of one's prose. The evidence is painfully clear. Take this ...

Writers and language geeks inherit a ranking system of sorts: verbs good, adjectives bad, nouns sadly unavoidable. Verbs are action, verve! “I ate the day / Deliberately, that its tang / Might quicken ...