Sensory verbs: SEE vs. LOOK AT vs. LOOK vs. WATCH

THREE TYPES OF SENSORY VERBS
Sensory verbs come in several different varieties:

1. Sensing: see, hear, feel, taste, smell
2. Attending: look at, listen to, touch, taste, smell/sniff
3. Perceiving: look, sound, feel, taste, smell

We use the first type to talk about receiving sensory information and the second type when the observer is deliberately directing their senses to attend to something. For example, to look at is to direct one's eyes to see something, to listen to is to direct one's auditory attention to hear something, to touch is to direct one's hand to feel something, and so on.

The third type of sensory verb is used to talk about the state or qualities of perceived objects. Grammatically, this third type is part of a small group of verbs (which also includes be and seem) that can take an adjective as a complement:

• It is/seems nice.
• It looks/sounds/feels/tastes/smells nice.

A FOURTH TYPE
There is also a fourth type of sensory verb, which we can think of as a refinement of the second type. The only difference is in the form of the verb for vision to give us watch instead of look at. Both watching and looking at are about focussing one's visual attention so as to see something, but watching involves not only attending to the form of objects but also to changes that occur in them over time. Hence we watch a movie but normally only look at a photograph.

Note that watching isn't merely looking continuously as is often claimed because a person can look at something continuously without attending to changes in it. Consider the following pair of sentences, for example:

• Jill watched television for an hour.
• Jill looked at the television for an hour.

Both of these sentences are perfectly acceptable in English, but they mean different things. The first is the more typical case that would apply if Jill were enjoying a television program. The second is a strange thing to do for a whole hour since it would suggest that Jill paid no attention to the changing images on the screen or that the television wasn't even switched on.

Adjectives: BORED vs. BORING

What is the difference in meaning between these two adjectives?

• a boring student
• a bored student

The first says something insulting about the student. If you want to describe a student who would rather be somewhere else, you should use the second.

A student might describe himself as bored and one of his lessons as boring. It is not a coincidence that these look like forms of the verb bore. Consider the following sentence: 

• The lesson bored the student.

If we wanted to focus on the role of the subject or the role of the object, we could rephrase it as one of the following:

• The lesson was boring. [progressive]
• The student was bored. [passive]

The subject (the lesson) of the active sentence can be described as boring and the object (the student) can be described as bored. It is the same when they are used as attributive adjectives:

• The boring lesson
• The bored student

Here are some other verbs that follow the same pattern:

Causatives: REMIND means cause to REMEMBER

Many languages have only a single word that covers the meanings of remember and remind so speakers of these languages often have trouble knowing when to use each in English and produce errors like the following:

• INCORRECT: Remember me to buy some bread on the way home.
• CORRECT: Remind me to buy some bread on the way home.

The relationship between these two verbs is the same as that between the verbs kill and die. Just as the verb kill means cause to die, the verb remind means cause to remember. Here are some examples:

• That smell reminds me of our holiday in Tuscany.
  [The smell caused me to remember the holiday]
• I had forgotten about the bread until Jill reminded me.
  [Jill caused me to remember the bread]

• I remember it snowed more when I was a kid.
  [No mention of something causing the memory to be recalled]

ADVANCED:

Adverbially adjectival: GOOD vs. WELL

Many adjectives have an adverbial form produced by adding an -ly ending:

• quick → quickly
• accidental → accidentally
• local → locally
• recent → recently
• frequent → frequently
• happy → happily [replace -y with -ily]

Other adjectives have an irregular adverbial form:

• good → well [instead of goodly]
• early → early [adjective already ends in -ly]

Modern theories of grammar include adverbial forms of adjectives within the class of adjectives much as singular and plural nouns are included within the class of nouns. The reason is because they share most of the behaviour of the adjectives they are derived from. For example, gradable adjectives and adverbs both behave the same way in comparisons:

Uses of the simple present tense

Dynamic verbs
With dynamic verbs (i.e., verbs that describe actions and events), the simple present tense normally has a habitual meaning so can be used with adverbials such as every day and often.

The Sun rises in the east (every day).

To talk about an event that is happening right now, you need to use the progressive -ing form of the verb instead.

The Sun is rising (right now).

Stative verbs
With stative verbs (i.e., verbs that describe states and relations), the simple present tense can't be used with a habitual meaning. Instead, it indicates a state or relation that holds in the present, much as the progressive -ing form is used to indicate the present with dynamic verbs.

I like/love/want/need you.
I come from Berlin.

Stative verbs do not always have a progressive -ing form. When they do, it often forces a dynamic meaning.

WRONG: I am coming from Berlin. [come from in the sense of where a person grew up]
RIGHT: I am coming home (right now). [come in the sense of moving towards]

The place a person comes from is not something that can change, but for states that are changeable such as where a person lives, an -ing form can sometimes be used, particularly when the state is new or likely to change soon:

I live in Berlin. [no comment about how permanent this is]
I am living in Berlin. [suggests that the speaker has moved to Berlin recently or that they might not stay there]

Some other examples of stative verbs are believe, know, agree, appear, seem, contain, include, consist, exist, belong and cost.