Verb Phrases

A verb phrase is a group of words built around a main verb, often with one or more helping verbs (auxiliaries) before it. Every sentence needs a verb phrase to express its action or state, and understanding how verb phrases work helps you analyse sentences with confidence.

What You'll Learn

In P3 and P4, you learnt to identify simple verb phrases and to recognise longer verb phrases with modals and perfect forms. Now in P5, you will go further:

• Analyse complex verb phrases that combine multiple auxiliaries with a main verb (e.g., "should have been waiting")
• Distinguish the main verb from its auxiliaries in any verb phrase, no matter how long
• Recognise how negation and adverbs can appear inside a verb phrase without changing its core structure
• Identify verb phrases in varied sentence types, including questions and passive constructions

When to Use

1. Identifying what is happening in a sentence: "The volunteers have been collecting donations since morning." (The verb phrase tells us the ongoing action.)
2. Finding the main verb in a long verb phrase: "She could have been chosen for the school team." (The main verb is "chosen"; the rest are auxiliaries.)
3. Understanding tense and aspect: "By next week, they will have completed the science project." (The verb phrase shows future perfect tense.)
4. Analysing questions: "Has the bus arrived yet?" (The auxiliary "has" moves before the subject, but the verb phrase is still "has arrived".)
5. Recognising passive verb phrases: "The results were announced by the principal during assembly." (The verb phrase includes the auxiliary "were" and the past participle "announced".)

How to Form

Parts of a Verb Phrase

Every verb phrase has exactly one main verb. It may also have one or more auxiliary verbs (helpers) that come before the main verb.

Building Verb Phrases Layer by Layer

Complex verb phrases follow a fixed order. Each auxiliary adds a layer of meaning.

Identifying the Main Verb

The main verb is always the last word in the verb phrase. Everything before it is an auxiliary.

Key Rules

1. The main verb is always last: No matter how many auxiliaries appear, the main verb sits at the end of the verb phrase. In "They could have been practising all morning," the main verb is "practising" and "could," "have," and "been" are all auxiliaries.

2. Auxiliaries follow a fixed order -- modal, then have, then be: You cannot rearrange them. Write "She must have been sleeping," not "She have been must sleeping." The correct order is always: modal --> have --> be --> main verb.

3. "Not" and adverbs sit inside the verb phrase but are not part of it: In "He has not finished his work," the verb phrase is "has finished." The word "not" interrupts the phrase but is not a verb. Similarly, in "She has always loved reading," "always" is an adverb, not part of the verb phrase.

4. In questions, the first auxiliary moves before the subject: "She has been reading" becomes "Has she been reading?" The verb phrase is still "has been reading" -- only the word order changes.

5. In passive verb phrases, the main verb is a past participle after a form of "be": "The letters were delivered this morning." Here, "were" is the auxiliary and "delivered" is the main verb. Do not confuse "were" with the main verb.

6. "Do/does/did" appear as auxiliaries only in questions and negatives: "She plays tennis" has no auxiliary. But "Does she play tennis?" and "She does not play tennis" use "does" as an auxiliary. The main verb remains "play."

Common Mistakes

Clue Words

Words that signal an auxiliary is present

is, am, are, was, were, has, have, had, do, does, did, been, being

Modal auxiliaries

can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must, ought to

Words that interrupt a verb phrase (but are not part of it)

not, never, always, often, already, just, still, also, even, really

Tip: To find the main verb, look for the last verb-word in the phrase. Everything before it is a helper. In "might have been cancelled," count backwards: "cancelled" is the main verb, and "might," "have," and "been" are all its helpers.

Practice Tips

1. The "last verb" test: Read the verb phrase and identify the last word that is a verb form. That is your main verb. In "should have been preparing," the last verb form is "preparing" -- that is the main verb.

2. The "who/what does it?" test: The main verb answers the question "What is happening?" In "The winners will be announced tomorrow," ask: What will happen to the winners? They will be announced. So "announced" is the main verb.

3. The "remove and check" test: Remove each auxiliary one by one. The word you cannot remove without losing the core action is the main verb. From "has been cooking": remove "has" --> "been cooking" (still makes sense as a phrase); remove "been" --> "cooking" (the core action remains). "Cooking" is the main verb.

4. The "order check" for complex phrases: When you see a long verb phrase, verify the order: modal first, then "have," then "be," then the main verb. If the order is wrong, the sentence has an error. "Could have been trying" follows the correct order; "have could been trying" does not.

Quick Reference