IV. Strong and Weak Verbs: The principal parts of a verb in English are -> The Present Tense, the Past Tense, and the Past Participle.
They are so called because from them we can form all the other parts of verb.
The verbs form their Past Tense by adding -ed, or -d, or -t to the Present. Such Verbs are called Weak Verbs.
If a Verb required -ed, -d, or -t to be added to the Present Tense to form the Past, with or without any change of the inside vowel, it is a Weak Verbs.
| Present Tense |
|
Past Tense |
| I abandon |
|
I abandoned |
| I spend |
|
I spent |
| I preside |
|
I presided |
The Verbs form their Past Tense by merely changing the inside vowel of the Present Tense, without having -ed, or -d, or -t, added to the Present. Such Verbs are called Strong Verbs, because they are able to make their Past Tense without having anything added.
| Present Tense |
|
Past Tense |
| I arise |
|
I arose |
| I do |
|
I did |
| I tell |
|
I told |
|
V. Regular and Irregular Verbs: Verbs can be regular or irregular. Based on the spelling we classify the verbs into regular or irregular verbs.
A regular verb forms its past tense and past participle by adding -d or -ed to its base form. This ending may be pronounced /d/ (accused, activated, viewed), /ed/ (accepted, hacked, listed), or /t/ (mixed, searched, slipped). It is also like Weak Verb.
An irregular verb forms its past tense or past participle, or both, in an unpredictable way: by adding no ending at all, by changing the vowel of the base form, by adding a different ending, or by using a combination of these methods (let ~ let ~ let, meet ~ met ~ met, swim ~ swam ~ swum, blow ~ blew ~ blown). It is also like Strong Verb.
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