Abstract:

Detailed grammatical information is an important design feature that distinguishes English learner's dictionaries from general English dictionaries. After comparing the grammatical information about verbs provided in the newest editions of six major English learner's dictionaries and on the basis of an improved grammatical system proposed by the present author,this article defines verbs in both a broad and narrow sense. In a broad sense,verbs comprise grammatical auxiliary verbs,modal auxiliary verbs,catenative verbs and lexical verbs that include phrasal verbs; in a narrow sense,verbs consist only of lexical ones. In this article lexical verbs are classified into six sub-categories,i.e. intransitive (including existential) verbs,transitive verbs,transitive/intransitive verbs,ditransitive verbs,linking verbs,and object complement verbs. It is these six sub-categories that determine the construction of kernel clauses. The grammatical collocations of these six verb types are given at the end of the article.