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Recipe

Find the verb and classify it

Use when: you've spotted a word (or a stack of words) doing a verb's job. You need to know whether it's the main verb or a helper, and if it's the main verb, whether it's an action verb or a linking verb.

Goal: the correct label for every verb in the stack -- helper or main, and if main, action or linking -- found by asking the same two questions in the same fixed order every time

Taught in Action, Linking, and Helping Verbs

Quick recipe

  1. Ask whether another verb follows
  2. Swap the main verb for a form of "be"
  1. 1

    Look at the word you're testing. Is there another verb sitting right after it, later in the same stack?

    Example

    She has been working on the report. Test has: does a verb follow? Yes, been. Helper. Test been: does a verb follow? Yes, working. Helper. Test working: does a verb follow? No. Working is the main verb. The full verb phrase is has been working.

    • yes, another verb follows — it's a helping verb; move to that next verb and ask the same question again.
    • no verb follows — it's the main verb; stop the chain here and go to Step 2.

    Why: running the be-swap test (Step 2) before this one tempts you into calling a helper like is a linking verb, since is obviously swaps for itself. Checking for a following verb first heads that off.

  2. 2

    Once you've isolated the main verb, try swapping it for is or was. Does the sentence still make roughly the same claim?

    Example

    The soup tasted salty. Swap: The soup was salty. Still true, still the same claim -- linking. She tasted the soup. Swap: She was the soup. Nonsense -- action; she did something to the soup.

    • the swap still makes sense, and the word after the verb describes the subject rather than naming something acted on — it's a linking verb.
    • the swap collapses into nonsense, and the word after the verb names something the subject is doing something to — it's an action verb.

    Why: some of the most common action verbs (wondered, doubted, believed) name a mental act with nothing visible happening. "Can you picture it happening" is never a reliable test for these. The be-swap is the one test that works whether or not the action is visible.

Common mistakes

  • Testing for linking versus action before checking whether the word is even the main verb, which can wrongly label a helper like is or has as linking.
  • Assuming any verb naming a thought or feeling (doubted, hoped, remembered) must be linking, just because nothing physical is happening.
  • Forgetting that a word like not can sit inside a verb phrase (has not been working) without being part of it -- it's an adverb wedged into the stack, not a fourth helper.
  • Mistaking an -ing or a to- word for the sentence's verb when it is a verb form doing a different job entirely (Chapter 7 covers this).