A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

§4.2 The 3rd person singular present tense^273

[12] When the 0 follows a consonant symbol, we typically get ·es:
go·es hero·es potato·es tomato·es torpedo·es veto·es
11 When the 0 does not follow a consonant symbol, we invariably get ·s:
boo·s embryo·s fo lio·s radio·s video·s zoo·s
There is some difference between verbs and nouns here. With verbs, the ·es alternant
is almost invariably used when 0 follows a consonant - as in the verb uses of goes,
torpedoes and vetoes. The same applies to nouns which are identical in form to
verbs (goes, torpedoes, vetoes, echoes and embargoes can be either 3rd singular
present tense verbs or plural nouns). But a good number of other nouns with 0 fol­
lowing a consonant take the default ·s instead: this is obligatory for dynamo, kilo,
piano, Eskimo, and optional with bongo, buffalo, halo, motto, volcano, and some
others.

4 Verb inflection

The inflectional categories of verbs were introduced in Ch. 3, § 1, where

we discussed their meaning and syntactic distribution. In this chapter we're con­

cerned solely with their morphological formation - which forms have which suf­

fixes, and how the results are spelled. Our main focus will be on lexical verbs (i.e.

verbs other than auxiliaries).

Almost all lexical verbs have six inflectional forms. The plain form and the plain

present tense are identical with the lexical base, so we don't need to say any more

about them. Of the others, the gerund-participle and the 3rd person singular present

tense are very straightforward, so we'll deal with them first. Then we'll turn to the

preterite and past participle forms, where we find virtually all of the considerable

complexity in English verb inflection.

4.1 The gerund-participle

The gerund-participle is invariably formed by adding the suffix ·ing to the

lexical base. In speech, that is all there is to it; even be·ing is completely regular. In

writing, addition of the suffix may lead to modification of the base involving conso­

nant doubling, e deletion and replacement of ie by y, as described in §§3.1-3.3:

[13] LEXICAL BASE

ii GERUND-PARTICIPLE

see stop hope subdue hoe lie

see·ing stopp·ing hop·ing subdu·ing hoe·ing lying

4.2 The 3rd person singular present tense

This is normally formed by adding ·s or ·es to the base. But in this case

be is irregular: we get is, not *bes. Have is also irregular, losing the ve of the base:

has, not *haves. In speech, does is also irregular in that the vowel differs from that