Understanding the Principle Parts of Verbs: Tenses and Forms Explained

1. Verb Forms From the UWF Writing Lab’s 101 Grammar Mini-Lesson Series Mini-Lesson #98

2. The principle parts of a verb are its base/infinitive (eat, talk) used for the present tense with auxiliaries like can, should, will, and does. • Its past form (ate, talked) and its pastparticiple form (eaten, talked), used with has, had, or have for perfect tenses with forms of be (is, am, are, was, were, etc.) in passive constructions. • Regular verbs like talk to form their past and past participle forms the “regular” way by simply adding –d or –ed to their base. • Irregular verbs like eat and the ones on the next slide form their past and past participle forms in “irregular” and unpredictable ways. • The past participle form of both “regular” and “irregular” verbs must always be used with an auxiliary/helping verb.

3. Examples: Present/ Infinitive Go Do See Write begin Past Tense Went Did Saw Wrote began Past Participle (have) gone (have) done (have) seen (have) written (have) begun