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Verbs are the most flexible of all words because their shapes vary according to:

• the mode of conveying predicate information,
• their tense, pointing to the time what is being stated takes place (basically, in the past, now, in the future),
• whether the clause is active of passive (the latter occurring with transitive verbs only),
• whether the verbal form is simple or progressive (also called continuous),
• whether the verb is regular (fits into a standard mould) or irregular (follows its own pattern of change),
• whether the statement is:
  • positive or negative
  • affirmative or interrogative

This is the most inarticulate verbal form and is taken to represent the verb itself, before any change is applied to it: to stay, to remember, to return, and so on.

Infinitives may show as subjects⁽¹⁾ in clauses like:

• To eat is necessary for survival.

• I hate to listen to him.

• Eating is necessary for survival.
• I hate listening to him.

L.G. Alexander's grammar, p. 301, lists verbs which either take up infinitive or gerund when used as subjects/objects.

This is another embryonic mode, mainly limited to giving orders or informing in an assertive way that something should or should not be done (as on traffic signs). Examples:

• Don't cry!
• Turn right
• Don't park on the bridge

"He might deny his permission to go there"; "They said you should not do this" ....
Here, modes other than imperative convey the idea that something was or will be enjoined.

• Let us go now!
• Let me finish this letter.
• Let them tell what they think!
• Let it be the way it should be.
• Let her play as long as she wishes.

It delivers matter-of-fact statements. Examples:

• They sit there waiting for you.
• They listened silently to the concert.
• He shall buy some more clothes.

Unlike indicative, it has psychological undertones: doubt, fear, unreality, possibility, courtesy, assertiveness … . Examples:

• I wish that they sat there waiting for you.
• I ask that you be silent during the concert.
• It is advisable that he buy some more clothes.

Subjunctive mode is seldom used in English, which most often couches even psychological statements in indicative (see above).

But, in other languages, only people with a high degree of education are able to confidently switch between indicative and subjunctive - depending on what they mean to say or write. German subjunctive even comes in two different varieties. Spanish and Italian also have unwieldy subjunctives. As to French, it is going the English way, tending to replace most subjunctive forms with indicative ones.

Compare the English "If I were like you ..." with:
• French: "Si j'étais comme toi ..."⁽²⁾
  ["étais" is an (indicative mode) past tense.]
• Italian: "Se io fossi come te ..."
  ["fossi" is a subjunctive form (the corresponding indicative form is "ero", which children and people with little education use: "Se io ero come te ...").]
• German: "Wenn ich wie dich wäre ..."
  ["wäre" is subjunctive (indicative form is "war").]

It is typically found in sentences with more than one clause, because it rests on a condition having been stated (which is usually done in a separate clause).

Multi-clause sentences are dealt with in Part 4. Revert here after reading that Part, in order to practice verbal conjugations⁽³⁾.)

Examples of conditional sentences are:

• They would have done this for you, if only you had asked them.
• Only if you come with me, would I go back into that room.

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The last sentence carries the so-called subject inversion, a construction whereby the subject (I, in that example) swaps places with a segment (would) of the predicate (would go).
Here, we have a two-clause sentence, with the first clause inducing the inversion in the second clause.
After reading Part IV it will become clear that inversion takes place whenever the principal clause does not start the multi-clause sentence, but there is a subordinate clause before it.

Subject inversion may occur in one-clause sentences as well, when triggered by particular complements or intensifiers ("In no way am I responsible for that swindle").

Usage requests subject inversion in most languages. Italian has hardly any subject inversion. German has it every time that the sentence starts with something which is not its core. English does the same, but with less rigour: for example, if the clause opens with a time complement no inversion occurs in English but it does in German: Yesterday I saw Mathilda / Gestern sah ich Mathilda.

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This mode lends itself to being employed as a noun qualifier (adjective) in expressions like:

• boiled potatoes
• smoking gun

Apart from its potential use as an adjective, participle mode is a component of several verbal tenses. To show how, let us first recall that the participle has two tenses:

1. present
   (with the suffix -ing attached: "smoking" is the present participle of "to smoke")
2. past
   (with the suffix -ed attached: "boiled" is the past participle of "to boil")

  The straw has been smoking since Charlie dropped a match on it.

The second (suffix: -ed) features in several past tenses. Example:

  The eggs had been boiled when we started to make the cake.

The "gerund" form is identical to the present participle. The gerund of "to smoke" is, again, smoking.

But whereas the participle may behave like an adjective, the gerund has the potential of turning into a noun. When discussing the infinitive mode, we saw that it fills the roles of subjects and objects in clauses like:

• To eat is necessary for survival.
• I hate to listen to him.

The same can be achieved through gerund:

• Eating is necessary for survival.
• I hate listening to him.

Unlike infinitive though, gerund is not restricted to being subject or object only. Like regular nouns, it can also be found in complements:

• By searching, we'll find your wallet somewhere.
• They kept the attacking dog at bay by means of their loud shouting.

  [Note that the gerund shouting is qualified by an adjective - loud - like any noun can be.]

Gerund and present participle are sometimes lumped together under the label -ing verbal forms - which simplifies the analysis of unclear cases like:

  Seeing the door open, they went in.

Is the above Seeing gerund or present participle? The hesitating analyst can ascribe that to the "-ing form" and leave it at that (see Alexander, p. 299).

[In our view Seeing is a present participle: it refers to people caught looking at a door; it doesn't refer to the concept of Seeing in itself - equivalent to noun Sight - as in:

Arthur had lost the gift of seeing (became blind) in the battle of Verdun.]

So far gerund was discussed in its present tense. An example of past gerund is:

• Having trained methodically for 6 months won that athlete the second place in a competition of 18.

An example of gerund passive form is:

• How can ever I forget having been hurt by them?

In the former example, the gerund performs as subject ("Having trained" ... won something). In the latter example, it is the object of "How can I forget ...".

In the next section, we turn our attention to "tenses", which each mode can adapt to. Indicative is the most flexible mode (it comes in 6 tense varieties); imperative is the least (it has only one tense: present).

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FOOTNOTES

(1) — Some may feel uncomfortable in thinking of verbs performing as subjects or objects in a clause. Indeed, so far verbs have been found in predicates and noun bundles in subjects, objects, and complements.
Well, infinitives (and gerunds) performing as subjects have largely shed their verbal nature and are closer to nouns than to verbs.
Saying

To eat is necessary

really means that "the fact of eating", "eating activity" is necessary. Therefore, such verb is closer to abstract nouns like "glory", "study", "effort" ... rather than to statements about subjects carried by conjugated verbs.

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(2) — Long ago French used subjunctive instead (Si je fusse comme toi) because it suggests a possibility, not a matter of fact.

"Le subjonctif imparfait français" is nowadays mostly restricted to formal language: Je n'avais aucune idée qu'elle fût fâchée avec moi (I had no idea that she was angry with me). Replacing subjunctive with indicative is not only tolerated, in most occurrences it is the standard form of today's French.

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(3) — Conjugating refers to how verbs change their shape; declining to the different shapes taken up by everything else: nouns, pronouns, adjectives and determiners depending on their logical role. Declension is most visible in case-based languages.

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For example, the indicative mode (present tense) "conjugation" of to work is:
• I work
• you work
• he-she-it works
• we work
• you work
• they work

And the declension of relative pronoun who is:

• who (when performing as subject - the technical term for this is nominative case)
• whose (when inside a belonging complement function - or genitive case)
• whom (when an object function or inside any complement other than belonging - dative / accusative case)

Inflexion is a more generic term covering both "declension" and "conjugation".

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