Let’s Know Verb 3

    Let’s Know Verb

           Nidhu Bhusan Das

   (Continuation)

 

          Now, what does the verb do in a sentence i.e., what is the sentential role/function of the entity known as verb? Well, let’s go consider the morphology of a word since verb is also a word. We know a word is a string/group of letters that gives a sense or bears/conveys a meaning. Letters represent sounds.Sounds, in every language are of two kinds-vowel and consonant. The sounds we produce with our mouth open or without obstructing the air stream in the process of our respiration are vowels. We cannot generate a word without a vowel sound represented by the vowel letters a,e,i,o,u in English. But we do have at least two words of one letter each in English. They are the personal pronoun I (first person singular) and a (indefinite article) for one.’Pt’ is not a word but put is. It means to create a sound image we need vowel sound along with consonant(s).

        Similarly, we cannot have a sentence in English without a verb, and we can have a sentence only with a verb as in an imperative sentence (e.g. Go) where the subject you remains silent. We cannot convey meaning saying ‘He football’ we have to say ‘He plays/likes football’. A group/string of words to become a sentence or clause must have a finite verb which agrees in number and person with its subject. A sentence says something about the subject and verb is the saying word. Verb predicates (says) something in a sentence.

       We can, therefore, say that verb is the ‘heart’ of an English sentence. As a human being or any other animal/living organism ceases to exist as soon as its heart stops functioning so a sentence ceases to be a sentence if and when its verb is plucked out. For example,’ We play cricket’ is a sentence but ‘We [the verb play plucked out] cricket’is not a sentence because the verb ‘play’is omitted. As in the solar system the Sun is the source of energy, and at the centre so in the sentence verb is the centre and life-force. Other words cluster around the verb or the verb chooses other word(s) to be its companion(s) to convey meanings.(to be continued)

 

Let's know Verb 2

               Let’s Know Verb

                            Nidhu Bhusan Das

(Continuation)

     A verb can take one or more arguments. The number of core arguments the verb takes is its Valency or Valence. The arguments are the part of the verb’s morphosyntactical structure. In chemistry, the valency of an element is a measure of its combining power with other atoms when it forms chemical compounds or molecules. In linguistics, verb valency refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate. Verb valency, on the other hand, includes all arguments, including the subject of the verb. The linguistic meaning of valence derives from the definition of valency in chemistry.

      Valency is verb-specific. A verb may expect one or more arguments. When a verb expects one argument, it is monovalent.When the expectation is for two arguments, it is divalent, and if the expectation is for three, the verb is trivalent.

       When we say ‘It rains’, the verb takes the expected pronoun-subject ‘It’ as an argument. Some grammarians say that in such cases the subject word ‘It’ is a dummy pronoun or expletive. Can’t we tend to believe that the pronoun is not a dummy but it replaces the noun ‘Rain’, and instead of saying’ Rain(Noun) rains(verb)’,we say ‘It rains.’ The use of ‘rain’ as noun and verb is a case of zero derivation or Conversion. So, here the verb ‘rain is monovalent.But those who believe that ‘It’ in this case is a dummy pronoun, and the verb ‘rains’ does not have a real argument call the verb’rain’ avalent for its having zero-argument. When we say ‘They play football’ the verb ‘play’ requires a ‘player’ (They-subject NP) and a thing to be played (football-object NP).Here the verb is divalent. As for a trivalent verb we may think of the verb ‘give’ which requires a ‘giver’, a thing to be ‘given’ and a ‘givee’ (the person to receive).(to be continued)

          Let’s Know Verb

                       Nidhu Bhusan Das

          Verb is a versatile term. It signifies many ideas. Sometimes we say it is an action word. But on scrutiny we come to understand this is not the real comprehensive identity of the versatile word. All verbs do not signify and show action. When we say,” We play football.” we definitely mean physical action and movement. But when we say,” I know you”, what physical action does it mean or show? None. It is also said, verb is a ‘Predicate Word’. To predicate means to say. In this sense verb is a saying word.Yes, verb says something about the subject in a sentence. But why and what is a subject? This question leads us to think anew, and it brings us to certain reasonings.

        Let’s think of the position of the sun in the Solar System. The sun is at the centre and the planets move around it while the satellites orbit their respective planets. Now let’s assume that Verb is the sun and the core elements in the sentence are magnetically related to the Verb and other elements modify/qualify the respective words. They are related to those words like the satellites are related to their respective planets. We may go for some examples to understand the arrangements.

1.      Ram plays.

2.      Ram plays [football].

3.      Ram plays [football] [in the evening].

4.      Ram plays [football] [in the evening] [with his friends].

5.      Ram plays [football] [in the evening] [with his friends] [on Saturday and Sunday].

        Here we have come to what is known as verb’s arguments. In this context we may refer to linguistics for guidance. Every noun and pronoun will be taken to be Noun Phrase (NP).In the first sentence the NP is ‘Ram’, in the second, we have an additional NP which is ‘football’. The NP ‘Ram’ is the subject and the other NP ‘football’ is the object of the verb. Here the expression ‘of the verb’ is the key to the understanding of the ‘role’ of the verb. The Prepositional Phrase (PP) means and suggests that the subject NP and the object NP belong to the Verb, not the other way round, as the planets belong to the sun. In the third sentence the added adverbial phrase(AdvP) ‘in the evening’ refers to the verb, and contains the NP ‘the evening’.(A sentence in its minimum form, in fact, can be seen as logical juxtaposition or organic association of two phrases-one NP and One VP).Other elements are adjuncts.

        The Verb dictates the use of NPs.The Verb is the chooser of NP(s).It chooses or decides which NP(s) and what type of Noun and how many it expects and will take. Let’s see how the verb chooses specific form of noun/pronoun in specific position. The specific positions are slots like the slots in a TV channel, In a TV channel, if one slot is for music; another slot is for drama, another for serial, and so on. The nouns that fill the slots are the arguments of the verb. Example:

1. She played cards.
2. She played he.
3. Her played it.

     In the second instance the (pro)noun ‘he’ and in the third sentence the (pro)noun ‘her’ in the specific slot(position) of object and in the third  instance the (pro)noun ‘Her’ in the subject position are wrong kinds of arguments which are not expected by the verb played,and,thus,  give rise to unusual sentences ,though the grammar is not disturbed, in the strict sense. The arguments that are necessary for the verb to generate sensible sentence are the verb’s core arguments. (to be continued)