As a linguist, I’ve lost count of how many times I have been asked what I think of the various language-learning apps. The truth is that I don’t use them. But of late I have been watching my daughter, ...

Subject-verb agreement means that your verb must be conjugated, or changed, to fit (or agree) with the subject. Subjects can be singular or plural. Think of singular and plural as mathematical ...

A teacher of English has sent in this query: “The participles of certain verbs function as adjectives in sentences. Many students find it difficult to distinguish between the adjectival and verbal ...

Different verbs take different types of complements and assign them to various positions. Two that we will consider here are ergative and unaccusative verbs. The basic one each assign a single ...

In this exercise, you'll see input verbs and model verbs. If you choose ring as your model verb, and then bring as your input verb, bring will conjugate the way that ring normally does. (You will get ...

A verb is a word used to describe an action. That’s doing something. Or, a verb can be used to describe a state. That’s feeling something. Or, a verb can be used to describe an occurrence. That’s ...

This article is reposted from the old WordPress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. The blog is on holiday until the start of October, when I’ll return with fresh material. For decades, ...