Sentences & Verbs (3)

Do you like babies?  Well, not a real question.  But if someone tells you that 'babies' can help you improve your English, spoken and written, do you believe it?  If you talk to people living in Asia, there may be something missing in their English.  What is that something? 

A missing baby!

A. What is a Missing Baby (Verb)?

What is a missing baby? Read the conversation between a westerner and an Asian and you'll know what it is.

Westerner	You live here, right?  So what do you think about your city?
Asian	The city good.  People nice.
Westnere	Yes, people here are good and nice too.

So you may ask: What is the problem with saying Bali good instead of 'The city is good'.  There will not be any problem if you don't want to speed up your learning of English.

B. Three Types of Verbs  

If you want to enhance your proficiency in English, both written and spoken, (there is) one thing you can't afford to miss:

Types of Verbs

If you think I am going to give you some grammatical terms that are boring and dry, well think again. There are funny names for the three types of verbs in English, namely:

Type 1	Baby Verbs e.g. is/am/are/was/were/been
Type 2	Non-Baby Verbs e.g. run a business, develop a program, discuss an issue
Type 3	Helping Verbs Can you name the three types of verbs?

For this post the focus is on the first type of verbs: Baby Verbs.  Why do I call them Baby Verbs? Well, they do 'almost nothing'.  What do I mean by 'almost nothing'?  They (Baby Verbs) are just something sticky, so sticky that they link the left with the right, as shown below.

Left

+

Right

These entrepreneurs             < -------   are   ------->     (digitally) smart.

Well (being) sticky is nothing special, why do you have to care about them?

C. The Mermaid Structure

It is because there is another thing about sentence structures of English.  What is it?  It has something to do with diving too.  Before you get the answer, check out the following mermaid.

What do you see?  Now look at it again from another angle (perspective):

Do you see that?  What?  The mermaid is 'divided' into three parts.  So what is my point?  You can break a sentence in English into three parts?  Which three: Head, Body, and Tail.   So do you think you can give the following sentence a go?  Break it into three.

Creating a new business model is not so easy. 

When you break it into three parts, you will find that 'creating' is not a verb.  Instead, 'is' the sticky thing, the Baby Verb, is the verb of the sentence.

HEAD	BODY	TAIL
Creating a new business model	is	not so easy.

The problem of Missing Babies becomes more serious if you try to make a long sentence (at a meeting): 

Head	Body	|Tail
What I am going to present today	Missing Baby Verb (is)	a plan to change the world

So for the sake of easy memory, we will give the structure a name: Mermaid Structure (Head, Body, & Tail).

Sentences & Verbs (2)

To consolidate your ‘feel’ of sentence structures, you must be equipped with one thing.

What is it?

Look at the picture and you'll get the answer:

You have to visualize a sentence to locate the Big Verbs and Small Verbs.

(Want the grammar terms?

Well, Big Verbs are finite verbs and Small Verbs are non-finite.)

The Technique of Visualization 

What technique is it?

Read the following sentence:

Protesters urge Hong Kong to protect Snowden.  

The Big Verb comes first and the Small Verb comes next.

Now visualize the sentence and it becomes:

Protesters urge Hong Kong to protect Snowden.

The Big Verb is urge and the Small Verb is to protect.

And there is one more thing to help you consolidate your ‘feel’ of sentence structures.

What is it?

Small Verbs come in two shapes.

Which two shapes?

Read on.

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Shape 1: with a head 

We have decided to renew our contract with Goooogle.

It is important to submit your report before the deadline.

As you can see from the above examples, ‘renew’ and ‘submit’ are Small Verbs because they come after the two Big Verbs (have decided and is). 

Moreover, they have to come with a head ‘to’, so that they are in a funny shape:

to + verb 

So, when you visualize the two sentences, they become:

We have decided torenew our contract with Goooogle.

It is important tosubmit your report before the deadline.

Want examples to be used at your office or school?

When you present your brilliant idea, you may start with:

I am here totalk about how to change the world.    

I aim totalk about how to change the world.

.






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Shape 2: with a tail 

Other Small Verbs are lucky.  They come with something beautiful, a mermaid.

Oh sorry, I mean, a tail. 

What tail is it?  Read the following sentences:

The CEO suggested cutting the budget on advertising.

There is no reason for giving up the plan now.

So the tail is:

verb + ing

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In a word, the two special shapes for Small Verbs are:

Shape 1: with a head

 to+verb

e.g. You are here tolearn sentence structures. 

  

Shape 2: with a tail

Verb+ing 

e.g. We suggest visualizing a sentence. 

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However, you may ask a question, probably a bigger one:

      

        

How do you know which shape to choose?

Or some even bigger questions may pop up in your mind:

Why are certain verbs followed by to+verb?  

(i.e. agree to finish it)

      

Why are certain verbs followed by verb+ing? 

(i.e. suggest finishing it)

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Pic Sources
http://www.flickr.com/photos/notsogoodphotography/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76029035@N02/6829510801/sizes/z/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/owally/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photowu/