Verbs are an integral part of every clause and sentence as they are the words that express the situation or action. Verbs are they conjugated to represent tense. The five forms of verbs are as follows:

Base form – see

Third-person singular – sees

Continuous or progressive participle – seeing

Past form – saw

Past participle – seen

See is an irregular verb so the base form, past and past participle forms are all different. A regular verb will simply add -ed in the past and participle form. Example:

Base form – watch

Third-person singular – watches

Continuous or progressive participle – watching

Past form – watched

Past participle – watched

Stative and dynamic verbs

Verbs are often defined as actions, but this is not strictly true, as some verbs are stative, meaning they represent a state or situation, rather than something dynamic. Examples:

Stative / Non-action verbs	Dynamic / Active verbs
Be, know, understand	Eat, drink, dance

 

Considering whether a verb is stative or dynamic is important as a stative verb cannot be used in the continuous/progressive tense. Example:

I am being hungry. Not possible because the verb is stative, so the sentence should always be: I am hungry.