Harvey's Elementary Grammar and Composition · Lesson 88–91 · Part 2: Part II: The parts of speech in full

69. Person, number, auxiliaries and the verb to be

Goal: Your child knows that a verb agrees with its subject, knows the auxiliaries, and can recite the verb "to be."

⏱ About 30 minutes · 7 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • Paper and a pencil (or a slate)

What's in the book

Lesson 88 covers person and number of verbs, Lesson 89 auxiliary verbs, Lesson 90 conjugation and principal parts, and Lesson 91 the full conjugation of "to be," with a synopsis to write.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Review

    Ask for the six tenses of "walk" with I.

  2. Agreement

    Read:

    A verb must agree with its subject in person and number.

    SayHe walks. They walk. Thou walkest (the old form the book uses).

  3. Helping verbs

    Read:

    Auxiliary Verbs are those which are used in the conjugation of other verbs.

    The book notes that do, be, have and will can also be main verbs: "He has money."

  4. Conjugation and principal parts

    Read:

    The Principal Parts of a verb are the present indicative, the past indicative, and the perfect participle.

    For "to be" these are be (am), was, been.

  5. Recite "to be"

    Read the conjugation of "to be" aloud, mode by mode, from pages 109 to 112. Don't try to memorize it all at once.

  6. Write a synopsis

    Read:

    The Synopsis of a verb is its variations in form, through the different modes and tenses, in a single person and number.

    Then do the book's exercise: write a synopsis of "to be" in the first person singular.

  7. Use it today

    Notice: "I shall" and "you will" was the rule in the book's day for simple future time.

Afterwards

Recite one mode of "to be" each day until it is easy.

Answers to the book's problems

Synopsis of to be, first person singular. Indicative: I am, I have been, I was, I had been, I shall be, I shall have been. Subjunctive: If I be, If I were, If I had been. Potential: I may be, I may have been, I might be, I might have been. Infinitive: to be, to have been. Participles: being, been, having been. Check against the book's tables.

Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.

@teddyrookbook GitHub