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The number of arguments that a verb takes is called its valency or valence. Verbs can be classified according to their valency: Avalent (valency = 0): the verb has neither a subject nor an object. Zero valency does not occur in English; in some languages such as Mandarin Chinese, weather verbs like snow(s) take no subject or object.
Verbs are used in certain patterns which require the presence of specific arguments in the form of objects and other complements of particular types. (A given verb may be usable in one or more of these patterns.) A verb with a direct object is called a transitive verb. Some transitive verbs have an indirect object in addition to the direct object.
A verb together with its dependents, excluding its subject, may be identified as a verb phrase (although this concept is not acknowledged in all theories of grammar [23]). A verb phrase headed by a finite verb may also be called a predicate. The dependents may be objects, complements, and modifiers (adverbs or adverbial phrases).
For more details, see English conditional sentences § Use of will and would in condition clauses. For the use of would after the verb wish and the expression if only, see § Expressions of wish. The auxiliary verbs could and might can also be used to indicate the conditional mood, as in the following: If the opportunity were here, I could do ...
The first English grammar, Bref Grammar for English by William Bullokar, published in 1586, does not use the term "auxiliary" but says: All other verbs are called verbs-neuters-un-perfect because they require the infinitive mood of another verb to express their signification of meaning perfectly: and be these, may, can, might or mought, could, would, should, must, ought, and sometimes, will ...
Without a verb, a group of words cannot be a clause or sentence. Adverb (describes, limits) a modifier of an adjective, verb, or another adverb (very, quite). Adverbs make language more precise. Preposition (relates) a word that relates words to each other in a phrase or sentence and aids in syntactic context (in, of). Prepositions show the ...
Being a verb, an infinitive may take objects and other complements and modifiers to form a verb phrase (called an infinitive phrase). Like other non-finite verb forms (like participles , converbs , gerunds and gerundives ), infinitives do not generally have an expressed subject ; thus an infinitive verb phrase also constitutes a complete non ...
A sentence consisting of at least one dependent clause and at least two independent clauses may be called a complex-compound sentence or compound-complex sentence. Sentence 1 is an example of a simple sentence. Sentence 2 is compound because "so" is considered a coordinating conjunction in English, and sentence 3 is complex.