The inflections of the verb
18–23 THE INFLECTIONS OF THE VERB 18 Introduction Most verbs have five major sets of inflections: Three tenses: past, present, future Imperative (i.e. request) Infinitive (i.e. ‘to . . .’) For example (referring to the verb by its simplest form, the ‘he’ form of the past tense):
° :±¯¢ The three tenses:
±¯ ° ¢
±¯ ° §
±¯¢ °
will shorten
shortens
shortened
Imperative:
!±¯ °
shorten!
Infinitive:
±¯ ° ¥
to shorten
Most verbs also have a related ‘action noun’, e.g. ±â¯¢° ‘abbreviation’. We have listed it together with the inflection tables, though in fact it is not quite as regular as the inflections proper (for example, the action noun for ° ± ‘dance’ is not ¢ ° ± as expected but â°¢± ). For the use of the action noun, see 64. Note: Verbs also have a gerund, related to the infinitive (e.g.
±¯ °
‘shortening’), but it is too uncommon to be listed here. See 97 for its use.
In addition, any given verb belongs to a particular grammatical pattern (known as a binyan). There are seven binyanim (see 25). Every verb also has a root, with certain types of root being peculiar in some way, leading to significant upsets in the verb’s inflections. But whichever binyan or root-type they belong to, verbs form their tenses and other inflections in a fairly uniform way; in the next five sections, we list these shared features.
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