The -s inflection indicates the PRESENT TENSE, and the -ed inflection indicates the PAST TENSE.
Base Form + Inflection She travel + s to work by train David sing + s in the choir We walk + ed five miles to a garage I cook + ed a meal for the whole family These inflections indicate TENSE. Certain endings are characteristic of the base forms of verbs. In, for instance, the -s inflection is added to the base form travel. These endings are known as INFLECTIONS, and they are added to the BASE FORM of the verb. The Base Form Here are some examples of verbs in sentences: She travels to work by train David sings in the choir We walked five miles to a garage I cooked a meal for the family Notice that in and, the verbs have an -s ending, while in and, they have an -ed ending. We can achieve a more robust definition of verbs by looking first at their formal features. So the notion of verbs as 'action' words is somewhat limited. We would hardly say that Paul is performing any action when he seems unhappy. For example, in Paul seems unhappy, we cannot say that the verb seems denotes an action. However, there are many verbs which do not denote an action at all. The verb in the following sentence is rides: Paul rides a bicycle Here, the verb rides certainly denotes an action which Paul performs - the action of riding a bicycle. Verbs have traditionally been defined as 'action' words or 'doing' words.
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