Be

Avertissement: cette page est destiné à un analyse grammatical du mot "be" :P

Forms

• dictionary form (bare infinitive): be
• present tense: am (1s), is (3s), are (1p, 2s/p, 3p)
• past tense: was (1s, 3s), were (1p, 2s/p, 3p)

• present participle: being
• past participle: been

Major Uses

Most fundamentally be is a coupler. It connects two ideas. Let's start with this basic understanding and look at what it couples:

copula: syntax

En semantique on parlerait plutôt de sa fonction, qui est souvent de lier un sujet à un attribut ou un ensemble (ou l'invers)...

1. It's a worktool. (NP)
2. A worktool, is it?


3. The door is open. (Adj)
4. They're sick.


5. The machine is breaking. (You can hear it.) (Present Participle)
6. The machine is broken. (Past participle)


7. Is Raymond in? (Particle)
8. Mark isn't. (negation) (VP ellipsis)


9. These ideas aren't mine. (sujet parlant est bizarrement attribut du sujet grammatical)


10. Were they to lose the lawsuit, they would probably go bankrupt. (Infintival expressing a condition)
    
11. They were to lose in the end. (infinitival expressing a historical fact known to the storyteller)

introduces partiples and participials

continuous / progressive (be + -ing)

Much has been said about this active voice tense. Present tense participles following the copula are common. The participle can be interpreted as a verb, a noun (usually called a gerund), or an adjective.

• He was writing. (V)
• This is (his) writing. (N)
• It is interesting. (Adj)

Only the first is considered verbal.

The terms "continuous" and "progressive" are both inappropriate in some ways. The use of be + ing usually implies that the speaker is putting the listener in the middle of the action "in medias res": the speaker or writer is like a filmmaker recording an action. Alternately, it can indicate a series of occurrences.

The term is however historically justified because be + -ing derives etymologically from be + on + -ing

passive voice marker (be + -en)

• Lincoln and Kennedy were both assassinated.
• Everything was frozen.
• It was golden. (ADJ, (predicate adjective))