Tuesday, 5 May 2015

Made him dig or Made him dug?



In a situation where we have two lexical verbs with one functioning as the main verb and the other as an auxiliary verb, the first verb in the complex will serve as an auxiliary verb accounting for tense and number while the second verb will function as a main verb and be in its base form. The base form of a verb is that which has not been inflected. For example, let us LOOK at the following:
Base Form/Present Plural Form
Present Singular Form
Past Tense Form
Past Perfect Form
Continuous Form
Dig
Digs
Dug
Dug
Digging
Begin
Begins
Began
Begun
Beginning
Play
Plays
Played
Played
Playing
 look,
Looks
Looked
looked
Looking
Walk
Walks
Walked
walked
walking

Let us look at the following examples:
1. LET us BEGIN (not  beginning, began, begun or begins) to worship God.
2. She MAKES him PLAY
3. We MADE him LOOK at the boy
4. She LETS him WALK on the lawn today.
5. John MADE him DIG the hole.   

The verb phases which are split in the above sentences are:
1. Let (auxiliary) begin (main)
2. Makes (auxiliary)  play (main)
3. Made (auxiliary) look (main)
4. Lets (auxiliary) walk (main)
5. Made (auxiliary) dig (main)