I understood what you were trying to illustrate, Martha. "Beware" after 
"should" does prove verbhood, though -- so it passes at least one of 
the verb tests; that's useful. I can't think of other defective verbs, 
though.

The modal test is very robust for verbs. With -s, you have the 
potential of confusion with plural -s, and we do have nouns with -ing 
such as "gloaming", "farthing", "molding", "coping", etc. -- Some 
derived from verbs, but the verb form has died. (I mean "coping" as an 
architectural feature, not from "cope"). These are rare, it's true. 
Some of my students try to use -ed as a verb test, but then I point out 
that we have adjectivals like "red-headed, long-legged, bearded", etc. 
In advanced classes, this could lead to an interesting discussion of 
how an original tense suffix became first aspectual, then adjectival.

In any case, I always instruct my students that there will be some 
words that fail some or even most of the tests. These will be a small 
minority, however.  It's part of reminding them that language, like so 
many natural phenomena, often resists pigeonholing.

Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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