McGRAW-HILL’S ESSENTIAL English Irregular Verbs

McGRAW-HILL’S ESSENTIALEnglishIrregularVerbs

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McGRAW-HILL’S ESSENTIALEnglishIrregularVerbsMARK LESTER, PH.D. DANIEL FRANKLIN TERRY YOKOTANew York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico CityMilan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto

Copyright 2010 by Mark Lester, Daniel Franklin, and Terry Yokota. All rights reserved. Except as permittedunder the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed inany form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of thepublisher.ISBN: 978-0-07-160287-7MHID: 0-07-160287-9The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-160286-0,MHID: 0-07-160286-0.All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner,with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have beenprinted with initial caps.McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or foruse in corporate training programs. To contact a representative please e-mail us at bulksales@mcgraw-hill.com.TERMS OF USEThis is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“McGrawHill”) and its licensors reserve allrights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Actof 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverseengineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publishor sublicense the work or any part of it without McGraw-Hill’s prior consent. You may use the work for your ownnoncommercial and personal use; any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work maybe terminated if you fail to comply with these terms.THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” McGRAW-HILL AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUARANTEESOR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BEOBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSEDTHROUGH THE WORK VIA HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OFMERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do notwarrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operationwill be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone elsefor any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom.McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under nocircumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive,consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of themhas been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or causewhatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise.

ContentsPreface  viiThe English Irregular Verb  1 Summaries of verb formation, tense usage, complementation, and phrasal verbsRegular vs. Irregular Verbs  1Verb Forms and Tense Usage  1The Six Basic Verb Forms  1Base ��4Present Participle  5Past Participle  5Tense Formation and Usage  6The Three Simple Tenses  6The Three Perfect Tenses  7The Three Progressive Tenses  8The Intensive Tenses  9The Passive Voice  10Verb Complements  10Complement Types  12Single Grammatical Element Complements  12Multiple Grammatical Element Complements  13Phrasal Verbs  13Separable and Inseparable Phrasal Verbs  14The Most Common Phrasal Particles  16Verbs of Motion  17Expressions  17chart Guide to Conjugations  18chart Guide to Complements and Phrasal Verbs  19188 English Irregular Verbs  21   Alphabetically ordered, with conjugations, complements, phrasal verbs,and expressionsTop 30 Verbs: Full page of examples adjoining select conjugation/complementpagesIrregular Verb Form Index  241 Index showing the base form of all irregular verb forms in the book

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PrefaceMcGraw-Hill’s Essential English Irregular Verbs contains basic conjugations and comprehensive usage patterns for 188 irregular verbs—all the irregular verbs that you are likely toencounter in even the most extensive reading. We have excluded only archaic and rarelyused verbs, like shrive (“offer the religious rite of confession to”) and smite (“to attack andkill/defeat,” usually encountered only in the King James Bible of 1611).In addition to the basic conjugation of each verb, McGraw-Hill’s Essential EnglishIrregular Verbs provides two unique features: A complete listing of the complements for each verbVerb complements are grammatical structures that verbs use to make correct, meaningfulsentences. Irregular verbs in English have 16 basic complements, plus dozens of combinations of these. For instance, the verb make, when it means “force, cause,” uses two complements together: an object and an infinitive. The infinitive, however, must be in its baseform, that is, used without the to that normally accompanies an infinitive.object base-form infinitiveThe teacher made the students sit quietly.Most English learners, even advanced ones, make the mistake of using to with the in finitive, because that is the more common complement. McGraw-Hill’s Essential EnglishIrregular Verbs and its companion, The Big Book of English Verbs, are the only books thatprovide the correct complement in a useful format. A listing of the important phrasal verb constructions for each verbPhrasal verbs are idiomatic combinations of verbs plus adverbs or prepositions. For example, the phrasal verb show up can mean “to arrive,” even though nothing in the meaning ofshow or up would lead you to expect this meaning.Moreover, there are important grammatical differences between phrasal verbs thatconsist of a verb an adverb (separable phrasal verbs) and those that consist of a verb a preposition (inseparable phrasal verbs). If the second element in a phrasal verb is anadverb, the adverb can (and in some cases must) be placed after the object. If the secondelement is a preposition, however, it can never be moved away from the verb. McGrawHill’s Essential English Irregular Verbs not only gives the meaning of every phrasal verb, butalso indicates which combinations are separable and which are inseparable.A 2007 study by Harvard scientists revealed that, over the centuries, En glish irregularverbs have been slowly becoming regular. Help and work were once irregular verbs! Thescientists predict that wed will probably be the next irregular verb to become completelyregular: Wed wed have wed will become wed wedded have wedded. The more common irregular verbs, like be and come, will take thousands of years to become regular. Inthe meantime, you have McGraw-Hill’s Essential English Irregular Verbs to help you use allof these important verbs correctly.Mark LesterDaniel FranklinTerry Yokotavii

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The English Irregular VerbREGULAR VS. IRREGULAR VERBSA regular verb forms its past tense and past participle by adding -d or -ed to its base form.This ending may be pronounced /d/ (cared, happened, viewed), /ud/ (committed, needed,listed), or /t/ (mixed, searched, slipped). See pages 3–4 for details.An irregular verb forms its past tense or past participle, or both, in an unpredictableway: 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 have let, meet met have met, swim swam swum, blow blew have blown).A verb is irregular based on its pronunciation, not on its spelling; for example, lay(laid have laid) and pay (paid have paid) are regular, because they add /d/ to their baseforms for their past tense and past participle—like stay (stayed have stayed)—eventhough the ayed is spelled aid.Compound verbs, like overeat ( eat), outsell ( sell), and withhold ( hold), form theirpast tenses and past participles like their root verbs; for example, overeat overate haveovereaten. A few high-frequency compound verbs, like broadcast, overcome, and understand, are included in the 188 irregular verbs presented here.Verb formS and tense usageThe Six Basic Verb FormsSix basic verb forms are used to create the entire tense system of English: base form, present, past, infinitive, present participle, and past participle. These forms are illustrated inthe following chart by the regular verb walk and the irregular verb fly.base formpresentpastinfinitivepresent participlepast participlewalkwalk walkswalkedto walkwalkingwalkedflyfly fliesflewto flyflyingflownSee “Guide to Conjugations” on page 18.Base FormThe base form of a verb is its form in a dictionary entry. For example, if you looked upsang, the dictionary would refer you to the base form sing.The base form is also the source (or base) for the present (with a few exceptions),infinitive, and present participle of the verb, whether the verb is regular or irregular.The base form is used as a verb in three ways.(1) It follows certain helping verbs, the most important being the modal auxiliaryverbs, or modals for short: can/could, may/might, will/would, shall/should, and must.(Mo dal verbs themselves have no base form, infinitive, present participle, or past participle; they have only present and past forms.) Note the base form of the verb be in the following sentences.1

2    VERB FORMS AND TENSE USAGEI may be a little late.He will be in New York all week.You must be more careful.Other verbs followed by the base form of a verb include dare (with not), need (with not),and help.We need not be silent on the issue.(2) The base form is used in imperatives (commands).Be good!Come here, please.Ring the bell.(3) Less commonly, the base form is used as a complement of certain verbs.object base-form infinitiveThe queen made the guests wait in the hall.A base-form infinitive is an infinitive minus the to. If an infinitive including the word towere substituted for the base-form infinitive in the example above, the resulting sentencewould be ungrammatical.X The queen made the guests to wait in the hall.PresentWith the sole exception of the verb be, the present form of all verbs, including irregularverbs, is derived directly from the base form. The main difference between the present andbase forms is that the third-person singular present form adds -s or -es to the base form ofthe verb; all other present forms are identical to the base form.The base form of be is different from all of its present tense forms.first personsecond personthird personsingularI amyou arehe/she/it ispluralwe areyou arethey areBoth the pronunciation and the spelling of the third-person singular present endingare predictable. If the base form ends in a sibilant sound (s, z, x, sh, ch, tch, or j (as injudge)), the ending is pronounced as a separate syllable rhyming with buzz. The ending isspelled -es, unless the base form already ends in -e, in which case only -s is added.base formlosefreezebeseechcatchthird-person singularpresent formlosesfreezesbeseechescatchesIf the base form ends in a voiceless consonant sound other than a sibilant, the endingis pronounced /s/ and is spelled -es. The voiceless consonants are usually spelled with ap, t, ck, k, f, or gh (when pronounced /f/).keepbeatseektakekeepsbeatsseekstakes