verb

[Gurpinder]

hey guys,

i know this might sound a very stuid question, i am not native english speaker. i am having a hard time identifying verbs.

i know that verb is action, or state of being or quality.

so in the sentence:
The dog bit the man
bit is the verb.

but in the sentence:
She is a smart girl

why isnt smart the verb. it is a state of being.

[uwhusky]

I'll quote this from the AWESOME book:

You can identify verb using two criteria: the constituent that follows immediately after the verb, and the verb's relationship to the constituent.

So in your examples:

The dog bit the man

the dog (noun) + bit (verb in past tense) + the (definite article) man (noun) is a transitive verb.

She is a smart girl

she (pronoun) + is (verb in present tense) + a (indefinite article) smart (adjective) girl (noun) is also a transitive verb.

An adjective can often limit, qualify, or specify characteristics of nouns.
"smart" describes the girl, hence it is a adjective and not a verb.

So what you need to do when reading a sentence is to identify the nouns, especially if you are not able to identify the verb. In most cases, verbs are between two noun phrases.

ps. It's not a stupid question. Verb is actually pretty damn hard to find, and it's all because of those lousy adverbs.