Verbbasen

Verbbasen, literally “the verb base,” is a linguistic term referring to the canonical form of a verb from which its inflected forms are derived. In lexicography and language description, this base form is often called the lemma or dictionary form. The verbbasen serves as the reference point for recognizing and organizing the other forms of the verb in a given language.

Across languages, the verbbasen commonly corresponds to the infinitive or a closely related non-finite form. In many Romance languages, the infinitive (for example, hablar, comer, vivir in Spanish) is treated as the verb’s base. In English and other Germanic languages, the base form is typically the bare stem used in present tense constructions (go, be, have) and is related to, but not always identical with, the infinitive form (to go, to be, to have). In Scandinavian languages, the infinitive and the lemma often coincide as the first dictionary entry for a verb.

The concept contrasts with the verb stem, which is the form that remains after removing inflectional endings for a given conjugation, and with inflected forms themselves (went, going, goes). Some languages have multiple lemmas for a single verb due to irregularities or periphrastic forms, while others use a single canonical base for all declensions and conjugations.

Use and applications include linguistic analysis, dictionary compilation, and language teaching, where identifying the verbbasen helps map inflected forms back to a single entry, aiding parsing and learning.

See also: lemma, stem, conjugation, inflection, morphology.