| principal parts of a verb |
| Definition -
A traditional term for a list of the basic verb forms that are sufficient to show standard verb irregularities.
For example, in English this list consists of: (1) the base or infinitive (look, see), (2) the past tense (looked, saw), and (3) the past participle (looked, seen). |
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Quotation - Except for the verb be, we therefore need list only three forms to show irregularities in the verb: the base, the past, and the -ed participle. These three forms are known as the principal parts of the verb." (Source: (Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford Univ. Press, 1996)) |
