Finite Verbs

Finite Verbs (sometimes called main verbs) are verb from suitable for use in predicates in that they carry inflections or other formal characteristics limiting their number (singular/plural), persons, and tense (past / present etc). Finite verbs can function on their own as the core of an independent sentence.

In English, as in most related languages, only verbs in certain moods are finite. These include:

• the indicative mood (expressing a state of affairs); e.g., “The bulldozer demolished the restaurant,” “The leaves were yellow and stiff.”
• the imperative mood (giving a command).
• the subjunctive mood (expressing something that might or might not be the state of affairs, depending on some other part of the sentence); nearly extinct in English.

Example

• I walked, they walk, and she walk  è are finite verbs.

* (to) walk is an infinitive.

• I lived in Germany.

* ‘I’ is the subject. ‘lived’ describes what the subject did. ‘lived’ is a finite.

The finite verbs are highlighted in the following sentences:

The bear caught a salmon in the stream.

Who ate the pie?

Stop!

A nonfinite verb form – such as a participle, infinitive, or gerund – is not limited by by time (see tense), person, and number.

Verb forms that are not finite include:

• the infinitive
• Parti-ciples (e.g., “The broken window…”, “The wheezing gentleman…”)
• gerunds and gerundives

In linguistics, a non-finite verb (or a verbal) is a verb form that is not limited by a subject; and more generally, it is not fully inflected by categories that are marked inflectionally in language, such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, and person. As a result, a non-finite verb cannot generally serve as the main verb in an independent clause; rather, it heads a non-finite clause.

By some accounts, a non-finite verb acts simultaneously as a verb and as another part of speech; it can take adverbs and certain kinds of verb arguments, producing averbal phrase (i.e., non-finite clause), and this phrase then plays a different role — usually noun, adjective, or adverb — in a greater clause. This is the reason for the term verbal; non-finite verbs have traditionally been classified as verbal nouns, verbal adjectives, or verbal adverbs.

English has three kinds of verbal: participles, which function as adjectives; gerunds, which function as nouns; and infinitives, which have noun-like, adjective-like, and adverb-like functions. Each of these is also used in various common constructs; for example, the past participle is used in forming the perfect aspect (to have done).

Other kinds of verbals, such as supine and gerundives exist in other languages.

Example:

The finite verbs are the underlined words.

The Crow and the Fox

One day a crow finds a tasty piece of cheese. She picks it up, flaps her wings, andflies to a high branch of a tree to eat it.