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what are sense verbs?

Average: 3.3 (123 votes)
Tue, 09/02/2008 - 00:00 — Chris McCarthy

 'Chillies taste hot.'

 
Here are some examples of sense verbs:
 
See= 'Can you see that airplane?'
 
Look = 'She looked at the painting carefully.'
 
Hear = 'I heard the phone ringing.'
 
Sound = 'She sounds like Madonna.'
 
Feel = 'Abdul felt his chair move.'
 
Taste= 'Can you taste this soup for me?'
 
Watch = 'They watched the film together.'
 
Smell = 'Cigarette smoke smells terrible.'
 

base  and –ing verbs

 
Compare these two sentences to see the difference in meaning between base and –ing verbs. The sense verb is ‘saw’ (see).
 
'I saw her play football.' = I saw the whole  game of football/ I saw the whole action.
 

'I saw her playing football' = When I saw her she was playing. We assume that the speaker did not watch the whole game. The game probably continued after the speaker stopped watching.  

describing things using sense verbs and adjectives

 
We can use sense verbs with adjectives to describe our personal opinions and thoughts about things:
 
'This cake tastes delicious.'
 
'The seawater feels warm.'
 
'You look tired.'
 
'Fresh bread smells great.'
 
'This new band sound original'
 

describing things using sense verbs and nouns

 
We use subject + sense verb + like + object to compare the similarity between two nouns. For example:
 
'Your father looks like Father Christmas.'
 
Your father (subject) + looks (sense verb) + like+ Father Christmas (object)
 
'Perfume smells like flowers.'
 
'This tastes like dog food!'
 

Link: 'What are auxiliary verbs?'

 

 

  • Opera ___ boring.





  • Beer ___ bitter.





  • My massage ___ relaxing.





  • Fireworks ____ giant flowers.





  • Gupta ___ his dog barking.





  • This soap ____ lemon.





  • You ___ your sister.





  • Can you ____ my bag for me?





  • The sand ___.





  • The scenery ___.





  • Cookies ___.