It depends on the language. Most modern European languages have two priciple parts; some languages, such as Classical Greek have six.
one
tense
The principal parts of a verb are the forms of the verb that you need to know in order to derive all the verb's possible forms. For "sing" these are:present tense: singpast tense: sangpast participle: sung
base form of the verb combined with different auxiliary verbs or helping verbs, such as "be," "do," and "have," as well as different verb endings to indicate the time of the action (past, present, future). These combinations create the various verb tenses in English.
sink sank sunk
The principal parts of verbs are typically the base form (infinitive), past tense, past participle, and present participle.
Verb Form
I'm French, but I think in English they're called prefix, radical and suffix. Prefix is anything you put before the radical, the radical is the "root" (what you will always find in a conjugated verb) and the suffix is what comes after the radical =)
In the sentence, "Earlier, I helped the principal." the verb is "helped."
Conjugation in English is regular in all but a few verbs. Problems are usually in the principal parts. Principal parts of to awake ( a weakened, intransitive form of to awaken) are: awake, awaking, awoke, awoken. Awaked is rare.
there is no verb
Participles are verb forms that can function as adjectives or parts of other verb tenses. For example, in the sentence "The broken window was repaired," "broken" is a past participle used in the past tense sentence. Participles can be used to form different verb tenses, such as the perfect or progressive forms.