The third person singular verb form in English is distinguished by the suffix -s

Question

The third person singular verb form in English is distinguished by the suffix -s, which is added to the stem of the so-called infinitive form. Verbs given in the infinitive form are typically written with “to” in front, as in “to sleep” or “to walk.” Often we simply add the letter “s” to the infinitive form (as in “sleep” “sleeps” and “run” “runs”), but in other cases we need to modify the end of the word. Here are some simple rules we could consider:

• If the verb ends in y, remove the y and add ies. Example: “cry” becomes “cries”.

• If the verb ends in o, ch, s, sh, or x, add es. Example: “push” becomes “pushes”, and “hiss” becomes “hisses”.

• Otherwise, just add s.

Implement a function singular verb() that takes a verb in its infinitive form (but without “to”) as an argument and converts it to its third person singular verb form according to the rules above. You might find the string function endswith helpful here. Suppose the variable name represents the string "Wolfie". Then name.endswith(’e’) and name.endswith(’ie’) would both evaluate to True, whereas name.endswith(’E’) and name.endswith(’in’) would both evaluate to False.

As we can see, the rules aren’t perfect – “play” should really have been replaced with “plays” to be gramatically correct, but your function will instead return “plaies”.

Examples: Function Call Return Value singular verb wax' waxes' singular-verb type 'types' singular-verb go' goes' singular verb ('play plaies

Explanation / Answer

//Verbs.java

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Verbs {

   public static void main(String args[]){
      
       String vb;
       //Reading the String value using Scanner
       Scanner s = new Scanner(System.in);
      
       System.out.println("Enter the verb in infinite form:");
       vb = s.nextLine();
      
       verb(vb); // Passing String into verb method
   }

   public static void verb(String vb) {
       String v="";
       String s[] = vb.split(" "); // Splitting if first string is "to"
       if(s.length==1){
           v=v+vb;
       }else{
           v=v+s[1]; // Getting String at 1st location if it Contains to
       }
      
       // Checking if verb starts with "y"
       if(v.endsWith("y")){
           // Removing last character and adding ies
           v= v.replace(new Character(v.charAt(v.length()-1)).toString(), "ies");          
       }
       // Checking if verb starts with o,ch,s,sh and x
       else if(v.endsWith("o") || v.endsWith("ch") || v.endsWith("s") || v.endsWith("sh")||v.endsWith("x")){
           StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(v);
           // Adding "es" to last
           sb.append("es");
           v=sb.toString();
       }
       //Else adding s for all other Strings
       else{
           StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(v);
           //Adding s to last
           sb.append("s");
           v=sb.toString();
       }
      
       System.out.println("The third person singular verb form of "+vb+" is:"+v);
   }
  
}

Output:

Enter the verb in infinite form:
to sleep
The third person singular verb form of to sleep is:sleeps

Enter the verb in infinite form:
run
The third person singular verb form of run is:runs

Enter the verb in infinite form:
cry
The third person singular verb form of cry is:cries

Enter the verb in infinite form:
push
The third person singular verb form of push is:pushes

Enter the verb in infinite form:
add
The third person singular verb form of add is:adds

Enter the verb in infinite form:
wax
The third person singular verb form of wax is:waxes

Enter the verb in infinite form:
type
The third person singular verb form of type is:types

Enter the verb in infinite form:
go
The third person singular verb form of go is:goes

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