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Base Form
Phonetics:
beɪs
fɔːm
Pronunciation:
Ruling the Root: A Guide to English Grammar's Base Form
Comprehensive Definition, Description, Examples & Rules
What is a base word?
The base form is similar to the word “base,” giving foundation. The word can be extended with “ed” and “ing,” “es,” or “s.” A base word simply constructs the base while ending suffix tags to make a more meaningful word out of it according to the current sentence or the clause.
We’ve all heard of a verb. A verb is anything that is acted upon, a word that describes our activities in a sentence. A verb is usually an action term. In a comparable manner while considering what is the form of the verb or what are the many verbs, one can look at it from a variety of angles. The obvious response is that there must be some basic action words that are covered by ends like “ed” and “ing,” “es,” or “s.”
Verb – base form is the basic version of action words. It’s only the action in its original form without any tense or any ending that keeps any more detail about it.
For example, run, spin, walk, talk, dance, and examples keep going on. There are endless examples of root words or base-verb words. These words can be given new endings such as ed” and “ing,” “es,” or “s.” Such as runs, running, ran, walked, walking, dances, dancing and so on.
It is important to learn about the root or the base of the verbs to predict the original words of action and how they can be put into sentences with correct tenses and other adjoining literary devices to make a sentence more appealing and communicative. There are certain verbs that don’t go with “ed” or “es”; instead, they are corrected differently, such as it is ran, not runned or runes. If you don’t know these properly or you don’t know that the basic word is “run,” you will never be able to correct yourself and communicate properly in proficient English with proper grammar.
Let us in this article understand more about what everything is and why it is important to understand verb-base form.
Base Form of Verbs
The simplest forms of verbs or any kind of infinitive verb is known as the base of the verb or the base form of the verb from which the ending can differentiate to explain the tenses around the action, such as future tense, past tense, present tense, past participle and more. These kinds of verbs are written with the indication of “to.”
For example, to run, to walk, to speak and so on. The basic verbs can later be changed into running, ran and more.
Certain rules exist for writing the basic or infinite verbs in their root form. Let us talk about the few rules one can look out for!
It is to be noted that a regular verb should have “to” before it in any sentence because “to” indicates the action happening in the present and is the most simple form of the sentence. Anyone who describes that the person is running will simply indicate the infinitive verb as he likes to run. The word “run” here indicates an activity, not the activity a person is doing or the activity a person has done but a simple activity in its basic form. Hence, when the verbs are written as basic activity, it does not indicate that anyone is doing it or has done already or will be doing it. Hence, it is to be indicated by the word “to” before it.
The past participle or simple past tense always makes the basic verb ending different from the others when using verbs; hence it is called irregular verbs. For example, action such as ran is the past tense of run and ate is the past tense of eat.
Another rule when writing the basic word and converting it to the modal verb is that when we write a modal verb, the “to” in the sentence will change into will do or could or should have done etc. These words are generally used in sentences where future participle or future tense is indicated.
The phrasal verb indicates the base form, which includes two verbs at a time creating one meaning. For example, ” look up,” ” sit down,” “stand up,” etc. In these examples, the person is expected to look in the upward direction making it to verbs with a single meaning to look upwards. Sit down and standing up also implies working with the same meaning as sitting and standing.
What is a Base Word?
The base word is commonly known as the root or the stem of the word, which is the most basic form of a word without any prefixes or suffixes attached to it. There are many kinds of prefixes and suffixes attached to the verb base, making it something different in the sentence, but the core remains the same.
For example,
- Run
- Spin
- Talk
- walk
- spray
And many more.
All these examples can be used in different sentences with different literary devices adding different kinds of prefixes and suffixes like “ing” or “ed”.
The relationship between base form and base word is that the base form of a verb is often used by adding prefixes and suffixes to complete the sentence. One should always remember that all the base words are not verbs, but all the verbs have base forms. We can often see that we don’t use the word run when we are describing something with time or in accordance to place or according to activity which someone likes. We preferably use running or runs or ran. The run is the simplest and basic form that can be converted into these giving us more details of how it should be.
Forms of Verbs
The verb is the most basic necessity of English grammar as it describes an event, mood, emotion, or anything happening in the sentence. As mentioned earlier, it is also known as action words.
Although there are many common types of verbs, we will focus on the most used forms of verbs. Keep reading to know more about it.
- Base form: The Skeleton of the verb in happening is known as the base form. Without it, there will be no action described.
- The present participle: the most commonly used word is a present participle which indicates that the action in the sentence is happening right now. The suffix “ing” is added to the word to indicate it. For example, running.
- Past participle: Past participles are those words which, in action, have regular verbs with “ed” last and irregular words such as risen, ate, and eaten.
- Simple past: These are often described with the suffix “ed” at the end. For example, walked by.
- Simple present: These words are generally used the same as the root words. For example, she runs or walks by.
- Present perfect: These are the verbs that have “has” or “have” ahead with the past participle of the verb in a sentence. For example, she has worked very hard every day this week.
- Past perfect: These words are often used in complex sentences with “had” ahead of a past participle verb. For example, I had walked to work before starting my vehicle.
Examples of verb forms:
- Base form: to eat, to set, to stand
- Present participle: eating, sitting, standing
- Past participle: eaten, sets, stands
- Simple present: I eat breakfast every morning.
- Simple past: I ate breakfast yesterday.
- Present perfect: I have eaten breakfast already.
- Past perfect: I had eaten breakfast before I left for work.
As mentioned earlier, it is important to refer to the form of the verb we depend on to describe the sentence in as communicative a way as possible. The verb can describe tense, mood, voice, aspect, and agreement with the subject.
Let us take an example of the basic verb “to speak,” depending on different tenses.
- Base form: to speak
- Present participle: Speaking
- Past participle: speak
- Simple present: I speak every day.
- Simple past: I spoke yesterday.
- Present perfect: I have spoken in a debate before.
- Past perfect: I had to speak for 10 minutes before I got tired.
This example shows that speaking has changed into different forms, giving us information about different times and situations.
The form of the verb is also responsible for describing the mood and the voice in the sentence or the context. Active voice and passive voice also indicate many things for the same reason. For example, when we take the verb “to speak” in an active voice, it is I speak Italian fluently and in a passive voice, it is Italian that is spoken fluently by me.
The basic form is also responsible for subjunctive mood. For example, as “to speak,” the subjunctive sentence changes into “it is important that he speaks Italian fluently.”
What is the Form?
The form is very significant in English grammar as it refers to morphology, Syntax and the structure of word sentence or a close it indicates factors such as aspect, case, gender,l number, agreement and other inflections in the sentence.
Function and form generally indicate the meaning or what is happening in the sentence. For example, the form of the word can elaborate on function as what is happening in the sentence in terms of past tense and present tense before a noun which can indicate its number and gender.
- Base form: to speak
- Present participle: Speaking
- Past participle: speak
- Simple present: I speak every day.
- Simple past: I spoke yesterday.
- Present perfect: I have spoken in a debate before.
- Past perfect: I had to speak for 10 minutes before I got tired.
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Key Takeaways
- Base form is the most elementary form of the verb.
- Verbs are not present in all base words, while verbs are present in all base verbs.
- Base forms Contains seven distinct varieties of its most frequent kinds
Quiz
Question comes here
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no difference; both are used simultaneously. The base form is the actual word referring to the infinitive form, referring to it can be used many different ways.
Yes, all verbs have a base form.
We don’t need to conjugate verbs in the base form as these are already root or simplified verbs.
Yes, the base form of a verb be used as a command or imperative.
The “to be” word is added with change to noun and tense. For example “ you had to be present by tonight.”
