Verb groups

We've seen how verb groups can give a sense of timing using past, present and future tense, and how tense helpers can add to this by showing if an action was completed or ongoing.

But verb groups can also convey many other aspects of an action.

For example, what is being communicated in the action in this snippet?

The word 'might' communicates how likely an event is.

What about this next snippet?

The words 'have to' tell us that someone is obliged to perform an action.

What does this next snippet tell us about the people being guarded against?

Would harm tells us the guard is interested in people who plan to or want to harm the place; it's about intention.

We can also have verb groups that tell us where a process is up to, like in this snippet where an action begins.

Or how successful it was:

So there are many shades of meaning we can create with verb groups, and there are a few different ways we can create them. We'll explore our options over the rest of this lesson.