Finite Verbs
A finite verb is a verb that expresses (1) a
person (I, you, he, she, it, we, they) and (2) a tense (present,
past, future, conditional etc).
So rather than saying what a finite verb is, we might
more easily say what it is not:
It is not a present participle -- going.
It is not a past participle -- gone
It is not an infinitive with "to" -- to go
It is not an infinitive without "to" (a null
infinitive) – go
As for deciding if a verb is finite in English, we need
the context. For this reason, English grammar books usually talk about finite
clauses and finite constructions rather than finite verbs.
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