be verbs and its usage

8/11/2019 Be Verbs and Its Usage

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Unit 11Be verbs and its usage

Objective: To learn abou t Be verbs inEnglish.

Be verbs

The following verbs are called as Be verbs in English. Am, is, are (Present)Was, were (Past)Will be (Future)

They are used in the following situations:

Be (used with modals, after "to") (imperative form)

Is, Are, Am (present tense)

's 're 'm (in contractions)

Was (past tense)

Were (past tense)Been (past participle)

Being (-ing form, gerund)

Examples of usage:BeI will bethere tomorrow. (use "be" after modals)Imight belate.He wants to bean astronaut. (use "be" with "to" in the infinitive)"To beor not to be;" that is the question.Benice now. (use "be" in the imperative)Please bequiet.

Is/Am/AreBill is sick today. (use "is" with he/she/it in the present tense)Sheisa doctor.It isnot time yet.Sheisnot here right now. (use 's as the contracted form of "is")Sheisn'there right now.She'snot here right now.Mr. Lee is eatingdinner right now. (use "is" with he/she/it in the present continuous)She's talkingon the phone.Maggie's leavingtomorrow.The dogis runningdown the street. (use "is" with he/she/it in the present continuous)

I ama lawyer. (use "am" with I in the present tense)

Iamnot a liar.I'mhappy to be here. (use 'm as the contracted form of "am")I'mnot going anywhere.

Weare at the office. (Use "are" with they/we/you in the present tense.)Jack and Jill areover the hill.You arewelcome anytime.They'rein the building. (Use 're as the contracted form of "are")We'reon the way.You'rekidding!Weare workinghard. (Use "are" with you/we/they in the pres. continuous.)


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They arehardly working.The boys are waitingto see her.We are not paying for the extra drink. (The negative "are not" can be contracted two ways)We'renot paying for the extra drink.Wearen'tpaying for the extra drink.

Was/WereI washere yesterday, so was Tina. (Use "was" with I/ he/she and it in the past tense.)Itwas a really nice trip.

Henry wasat the dentist's for two hours.We werein Spain last week. (Use "were" with you/we/they in the past tense.)The Smiths wereon vacation.You werethe only one here.They weren'tat work yesterday. (The only contracted forms are wasn't/weren't.)Jared wasn'there either.I wasn'taware of that.

BeenRachelhas beenthere before. (Use "been" after have/has/had.)I've neverbeento Maine.We have been livinghere since June.You should have been payingattention.

BeingBeinga good sport is important. (Use "being" when a gerund form of be is required.)Beingon time is essential.Iwas beinga jerk. (Use "being" when "be" is used in the continuous.)

Simple QuestionsWe create simple yes/no questions by inverting the order of subject and the To be verb.

Is your brother taller than you?

Am I bothering you?

Were they embarrassed by the comedian?The same inversion takes place when To be is combined with verbs in the progressive:

Am I working with you today?

Is it snowing in the mountains?

Were your children driving home this weekend?

The Linking and Existential 'To Be'The verb To be most frequently works in conjunction with another verb: He is playing the piano, Shewill be arriving this afternoon. Occasionally, though, the verb will stand by itself, alone, in a sentence.This is especially true in simple, brief answers to questions.Who'sgoing to the movies with me?I am

Who's responsible for this mess in the bathroom?She is.In sentences such as these, the subject usually receives the intonation stress and the voice falls off on

the verb.An auxiliary can be combined with the base form of To be to provide simple answers to questions thatuse forms of to be.Is Heitor in class this morning?Well, he might be.

Is anyone helping Heitor with his homework?I'm not sure. Suzanne could be.The verb To be also acts as a linking verb, joining the sentence subject with a subject complement oradjective complement. A linking verb provides no action to a sentence: the subject complement re-


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identifies the subject; the adjective complement modifies it. (For further information and additionalvocabulary in dealing with linking verbs, visit the hyperlinks in this paragraph.)

Professor Moriber is the Director of Online Learning.

Our trip to Yellowstone was fantastic!In Passive ConstructionsA form of the verb To be is combined with a past participle to form the passive. Passive verbconstructions are useful when the subject of an action is not as important as what the subject did (theaction of the sentence) or when the subject is unknown. For instance, the police might report t hat Theprofessor was assaulted in the hallways because they do not know the perpetrator of this heinous crime.

In technical writing, where the process is more important than who is doing the activity, we might reportthat Three liters of fluid is filtered through porous glass beads. Regardless of the verb's purpose, onlythe auxiliary form of To be changes; the participle stays the same. The To be will change form toindicate whether the subject is singular or plural:

The foundation is supported by enormous floating caissons that keep it from sinking into theswamp.

They were constructed by workers half submerged in the murky waters.Notice how the information about who did the action is frequently found in a prepositional phrasebeginning with by. Passive constructions do not always include this information:

Wooden caissons were used until fiberglass structures were developed in the 1950s.

Caissons were also designed to function under water in the construction of bridges.The To be will also change to indicate the time of the action and the aspect of the verb (simple,progressive, perfect).

Water is pumped out of the caisson to create an underwater work chamber. (simple present) Some caissons were moved to other construction sites. (simple past)

While the water was being pumped out, workers would enter the top of the waterproof chamber.(past progressive)

Many other uses of caisson construction have been explored. (present perfect)

Caissons had been used by the ancient Romans. (past perfect)

Other uses will be found. (future)The To be verb can be combined with other modal forms (along with the past participle of the main verb)to convey other kinds of information. See the section on modals for the various kinds of informationconveyed by modals (advisability, predictability, guessing, necessity, possibility, etc.).

The wall joints may be weakened if the caissons can't be rebuilt.

Perhaps the caissons should be replaced; I think they ought to be.

These ancient, sturdy structures might have been rotted by constant exposure to water.

Visit our section on the passivefor advice on when to use the passive and when to substitute more activeverb forms.When To be verbs are combined with modal forms in this manner, the construction is called a phrasalmodal. Here are some more examples:

Rosario was able to finish her degree by taking online courses.

She wasn't supposed to graduate until next year.

She will be allowed to participate in commencement, though.

She is about to apply to several graduate programs.

She is going to attend the state university next fall.Sometimes it is difficult to say whether a To be verb is linking a subject to a participle or if the verb andparticiple are part of a passive construction. In Certain behaviors are allowed, is "are linking behaviorsto "allowed" (a participle acting as a predicate adjective) or is are allowed a passive verb? In the finalanalysis, it probably doesn't matter, but the distinction leads to some interesting variations. Consider the

difference between The jurists were welcomed.

and

The jurists were welcome.In the first sentence, the participle welcomed (in this passive construction) emphasizes the action ofwelcoming: the smiles, the hearty greetings, the slaps on the back. In the second sentence, the predicateadjective welcome describes the feeling that the jurists must have had upon being so welcomed.Tag Questions with To BeClick HERE for a description of tag questions, a device by which a statement is turned into a question.When we use To be verbs in a tag question, the basic formula follows: the verb is combined with a


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pronoun and sometimes with not(usually in a contracted form). Positive statements are followed bynegative tags; negative statements by positive tags.

Robert Frost was America's favorite poet, wasn't he?

He wasn't widely accepted in this country at first, was he?

You were going to skip this poem, weren't you?

There were several typographical errors in this anthology, weren't there? (Be careful here. It's notweren't they.)

I am not a very good reader, am I?

I'm a better reader than you, aren't I?

(Don't try to make sense of this last construction. It is acceptable. In veryformal text, you might write amI not instead. Ain't is not regarded as acceptable except in text attempting to duplicate substandardspeech.)

Order with AdverbsNotice that adverbs of frequency normally appear after forms of the verb To be:

As a student, he was seldom happy.

Arturo is always first in line.

They were never on time.Notice that the adverb stillappears after To be verbs but be fore other main verbs:

My brother-in-law still works for the bank.

He is still a teller after twenty years.An adverb can be interposed between the infinitive To be and a participle, as in the following sentences.

The fear of splitting an infinitive is without grounds in this construction. This medicine has to be carefullyadministered.

She turned out to be secretlymarried to her childhood sweetheart.

Unnecessary Uses of To BeEven a casual review of your writing can reveal uses of the verb To be that are unnecessary and thatcan be removed to good effect. In a way, the To be verb doesn't do much for you it just sits there and text that is too heavily sprinkled with To be verbs can feel sodden, static. This is especially true ofTo be verbs tucked into dependent clauses (particularly dependent clauses using a passiveconstruction) and expletive constructions (There is, There were, it is, etc.). Note that the relativepronoun frequently disappears as well when we revise these sentences.

He wanted a medication that was prescribed by a physician.

She recognized the officer who was chasing the crook.

Anyone who is willing to work hard will succeed in this program. It was Alberto who told the principal about the students' prank. (Notice that the it was brought

special emphasis to Alberto, an emphasis that is somewhat lost by this change.)

A customer who is pleased is sure to return. A pleased customer is sure to return. (When weeliminate the To be and the relative pronoun, we will also have to reposition the predicateadjective to a pre-noun position.)

An expletive construction, along with its attendant To be verb, can often be eliminated to good effect.Simply omit the construction, find the real subject of the sentence, and allow it to do some real work witha real verb.

There were some excellent results to this experiment in social work. (Change to . . . .) Thisexperiment in social work resulted in . . . .

There is one explanation for this story's ending in Faulkner's diary. (Change to . . . .) Faulkner'sdiary gives us one explanation for this story's ending.

On the other hand, expletive constructions do give us an interesting means of setting out or organizingthe work of a subsequent paragraph:

There were four underlying causes of World War I. First, . . . .

Fuzzy Verb Phrases with "Be"Verb phrases containing "be" verbs are often merely roundabout ways of saying something better saidwith a simple verb. Thus "be supportive of" for "support" is verbose.The following circumlocutory uses of "be" verbs are common in stuffy writing. The simple verb (inparentheses) is usually better:

be abusive of (abuse) be in existence (exist)


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be applicable to (apply to)be benefited by (benefit from)be derived from (derive from)be desirous of (desire or want)be determinative of (determine)be in agreement (agree)be in attendance (attend)be indicative of (indicate)be in error (err)

be influential on (influence)be in possession of (possess)be in receipt of (have received)be in violation of (violate)be operative (operate)be productive of (produce)be promotive of (promote)be supportive of (support)

Many such wordy constructions are more naturally phrased in the present-tense singular: "is able to"("can"), "is authorized to" ("may"), "is binding upon" ("binds"), "is empowered to" ("may"), "is unable to"("cannot").

be verbs and its usage

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