The two senses are related in this way: a verb phrase consists of one or more verbs (sense 2) e.g. linked, is making, can believe, might be leaving in the sentences below; the verb phrase operates as the verb (sense 1) in the clause, e.g.:

They linked hands. He is making a noise.

I can believe you. She will be leaving soon.

Verbs are the very large lexical word class in English, and were traditionally called ‘doing’ words when taught to young children. The lexical verb class is more inclusive than the label implies as there are verbs (for example have, be) which do not describe doing, but being, or states, rather than processes and still others that describe events with no intentional action behind them (for example die, fall).

In order to group these words together, then, we need to identify their formal nd functional features. The inflectional morphemes can be used to modify the verb in English. These include the present-tense, third-person singular morpheme, which is written as -s in most cases; the past tense morpheme, written as -ed in all regular verbs in English; and the progressive form, which is written as -ing for all English verbs.

Many minor sentences, and many spoken ones, consist of a single word that is not necessarily a verb:

No! Natalie! Me. Singing. Slowly.

It is possible to work out likely contexts in which these words will occur as utterances in their own right. However, they must have a context in order to have a viable meaning.

With the exception of these and other minor utterance types, clauses in English need to have a verb in them. This verb may be the head of a verb phrase, but it may stand alone as a verb phrase too. The following clauses have a single verb functioning in the predicator role:

Young Jolyon looked round the room. [59, p.65]

The old face looked worn and hollow again [59, p.34]

His eyes roved from bottle to bottle.[59, p.74]

Two ladies advanced. [59, p.44]

The fixity of Swithin's eye alone betrayed emotion[59, p.52]

As a word class verbs can be divided into three main categories, according to their function within the verb phrase: the open class of Full Verbs (or lexical verbs), and the very small closed classes of Primary Verbs, and Modal Auxiliary Verbs. Since the primary verbs and the modal auxiliary verbs are closed classes, we can list them in full.

Full Verbs believe, follow, like, see,…

Primary Verbs be, have, do

Modal Auxiliaries can, may, shall, will, must, could, would,…

If there is only one verb in the verb phrase, it is the Main Verb. If there is more than one verb, the final one is the main verb, and the one or more verbs that go before it are auxiliaries. For example transmit is the main verb in this sentence, and might and be are auxiliaries:

? to whom he might transmit the money he saved,?[59, p.66]

Of the three classes of verbs, the full verbs can act only as main verbs, the modal auxiliaries can act only as auxiliary verbs, and the primary verbs can act either as main verbs or as auxiliary verbs. Let us investigate the auxiliary verbs closer.

Auxiliary verbs. Auxiliaries have little or no lexical meaning. They are ‘helper’ verbs, in the sense that they help to form complex verb forms. In doing so they express either a grammatical notion (like ‘passive’, ‘progressive’ or ‘tense’) or one or more modal ideas. This is not to say that auxiliaries are devoid of meaning, but their meanings are more schematic (i.e. more ‘skeletal’, more ‘abstract’, less ‘full’) than those of lexical verbs.

Within the auxiliaries we can make a distinction between two classes: grammatical auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries. The former, which are sometimes referred to as ‘primary auxiliaries’, have a purely grammatical function:

1. the ‘tense auxiliary’ have, which is used in forming perfect tense forms;

2. the ‘aspect auxiliary’ be, which is used for building progressive verb orms;

3. the ‘voice auxiliary’ be, which is used in the passive;

4. the ‘periphrastic auxiliary’ do, which is used as a ‘dummy’ (pro-form) when a VP that does not contain an auxiliary (e. g. love her) is used in a construction that requires one (e. g. I don’t love her, Do you love her?, I do love her, etc.)

Next, there are the ‘modal auxiliaries’: can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, ought to, will, and would. These auxiliaries express special shades of meaning, such as volition, possibility, permission, necessity, intention, obligation, expectation, inference, ability, determination, etc. The modal auxiliaries differ semantically from the first group in that they add lexical meaning rather than fulfill a grammatical function. However, they still have less concrete, and hence more widely applicable, meanings than most lexical verbs. This wider applicability explains why auxiliaries form a relatively small set when compared with lexical verbs.

Because an auxiliary does not have a full lexical meaning, it cannot be used without a main (lexical) verb, except in ?code?, where the auxiliary is used as pro-form for an entire verb phrase (as in If I do the thing, I will do it thoroughly, but I must have a free hand). In other words, an auxiliary cannot be the only or last verb form in the VP (except in ?code?). In the following example the main verbs are italicized while the auxiliaries are underlined:

[“What did he do last night?”] - “He {studied / worked / may have slept / could /had to / would }.”

Unlike lexical verbs, auxiliaries have the so-called ‘NICE-properties’. ‘NICE’ is an acronym (coined by Huddleston 1976) consisting of the initial letters of the terms negation, inversion, code and emphasis. The reference is to the four cases in which the English VP requires an auxiliary. If there is no auxiliary, the ‘periphrastic auxiliary’ do has to be added. In that case we say that the lexical verb requires ‘do-support’. In other words, the statement that ‘auxiliaries have the NICE-properties’ means that they do not combine with the periphrastic auxiliary do in clauses made negative by the use of not, in clauses involving subject-auxiliary inversion, in code and in cases of emphasis. By contrast, clauses without an auxiliary need ‘do-support’ (i.e. the insertion of do) in these four cases. Compare:

He went / He didn’t go / Did he go? / Yes he did / He did go.

He will go / He won’t go / Will he go? / Yes he will / He will go.