LEARNER'S ENGLISH GRAMMAR 2004 by Masaya Oba

5-1 [Verb (V)]
The third group of major morphemes expresses action and state. This group is called a verb or V in this book. Examples are:

   (i) Verbs of Action
     (1)  come, swim, talk, run, etc.
  (ii) Verbs of State
     (2)  know, see, smell, etc.

5-2 [Verb (V) and Verbalizer (VZ)]
The verbs in 5-1 consist of one word. Many verbs, however, consist of two or more words.

     (3)  have a headache
     (4)  be happy

The word "have" in (3) is a minor morpheme which converts the noun phrase "a headache" into the verb phrase "have a headache". In (4) the word "be" is a minor morpheme which converts the adjective "happy" into the verb phrase "be happy".
In this book, the leftmost convertor of the verb phrase is called a verbalizer or a VZ. Thus,

     (5)  VZ(have)  +  N(a headache)    V(have a headache)
     (6)  VZ(be)  +  A(happy)    V(be happy)

The diagrams of (5) and (6) are (7) and (8) respectively.

      (7)      (have a headache)
                       V
                       
                 CVT        N
             (VZ=have)  (a headache)

      (8)      (be happy)
                   V
                   
             CVT        A
           (VZ=be)   (happy)

Compare these with "come" for instance.

      (9)      (come)
                 V
                 |
                 V
               (come)

     Further explantaion of verbalizers will be given in 10-2.

5-3  [Be-Verb(Vbe)    vs    Common Verb(Vcom)]
     In terms of grammatical behavior, verbs are divided into two groups. The first group has the verbalizer "be" in it and the second one has no "be" in it. As each group shows different grammatical behavior, we call the former a be-verb(Vbe) and the latter a common verb(Vcom).
     Examples:

   (i) <Vbe>
     (10)  be lucky, be strong,  be in the garden,  etc.
  (ii) <Vcom>
     (11)  go,  hit the target,  look sad,  etc.

Further explanation on ‚ube and ‚ucom will be given in 9-3 to 9-7.