There are three main types of verbs: action verbs, linking verbs, and helping verbs. Action verbs show physical action, like run or walk. Linking verbs connect subjects to nouns or adjectives, like be, seem, or smell. Helping verbs help express tense or voice and need an action verb, like will go or has eaten.

1. Types of Verbs
A verb is a word that shows action or links a subject to
another word in a sentence.

2. Types of Verbs
• There are three types of verbs
• Action
• Linking
• Helping

3. Action Verbs
• Action verbs tell what the subject is doing.
• Examples:
• Ran
• Hide
• Walk
• Swim
• Told
• Play

4. Linking Verbs
• Linking verbs connect or link a subject to a
noun or an adjective in the predicate.
• Common Linking verbs:
• Is
• Were
Subject
Are
Being
Was
Been
Noun
• Mark is a football player.
Am

5. Linking Verbs
• Verbs such as smell, look, taste, feel, remain,
turn, appear, become, sound, seem, grow,
and stay can also be linking verbs.
• How do you know if it is linking or action?
• One trick to identifying linking verbs is that any
linking verb can be replaced by a “be” verb
without changing the meaning of the
sentence.

6. • “Be” verbs include: be, is, am, are, was, and
were.
• For example, in the sentence, “Your feet smell
bad,” you know that “smell” is a linking verb
because you could replace it with a “be”
verb—“Your feet are bad.”
• On the other hand, in the sentence, “I smell
pizza,” “smell” can’t be a linking verb because
“I am pizza” doesn’t make sense.

7. Helping Verbs
• Helping verbs help the main verb express
tense and voice.
• Helping verbs need an action verb with them.
Helping
• Susie will go to the store.
Action

8. Helping Verbs
• There are three primary helping verbs: be (is,
am, are, was, were, been), have (has, had), and
do (does, did, done).
• While these three verbs can act as main verbs in
a sentence, they can also work as helping verbs
to create verb phrases.

9. Helping Verbs
• The other type of helping verbs are called modal
helping verbs.
• We use them to modify or specify the meaning or
attitude of the main verb in some way.
• These are the modal verbs:
• Can, Could, Might, Will, Would, Shall, Should, Must,
Ought to
• Examples:
• You should read this book. The book might change your
life.
• They must have been watching the movie without you.