Book excerpt: This collection of essays sheds new light on the verb in English. The authors illustrate that verbs can only be properly understood if studied from both a theoretical and descriptive perspective. In Part One, the authors explore topics such as the terminological problems of classification, verb complementation, the semantics and pragmatics of verbs and verbal combinations, and the notions of tense, aspect, voice and modality. In Part Two, computer corpora are used to study various types of verb complements and collocations, to trace the development in English of certain verb forms, and to detail the usage of verbs in different varieties and genres of English.