Syntax

Verbs?2 Verbs are tricky, as you know, because sometimes they are made up of more than one word. We can have a main verb, like climb, and a whole bunch of other words that help to tell us when and if it happened. She climbs. She has climbed. She will have climbed. She could have climbed. She will have been climbing. She is climbing. In the sentences above every word but she is part of a verb! Wow! Climb is the main verb, because it tells us what happened. All the other words like could, have, will and is help the main verb. They are called helping verbs. Helping verbs and the main verb together are called the complete verb. Finding the complete verb is easy if you find the main verb first. Once you?ve found it look for little linking verbs that are tacked onto it like: