• It is the core of the predicate and the center of all its complements. • It constitutes a unit of thought in the sentence by expressing the enunciative, wishful, interrogative and imperative attitude of the speaker. • Through endings, it expresses the grammatical person of the subject, synthetically joining the two immediate constituents of the sentence, subject and predicate. • Place its meaning and that of the whole sentence in the present, the past or the future.