ABSTRACT
Verbs give life to nouns—they situate them, active them, animate them, and act on them. Verbs express actions and movements in addition to states and existence. There are three main categories of verbs: dynamic verbs, stative verbs, and linking verbs. Dynamic verbs express movement and activity. They include verbs that specify action types, express motion and manner of motion, and report information. Stative verbs express stable and unchanging physical states as well as states of cognition, preference, and emotion. Linking verbs equate the subject of a clause to another noun phrase, pronoun, adjective, or prepositional phrase. Additional concepts that relate to verbs are the notions of transitivity and agency. Genres in discourse exhibit different patterns of use of dynamic verbs, stative verbs, and linking verbs. Different verb types in discourse also reveal aspects of stance, agency, and control.
