Auxiliary Verbs or
Helping
Helping verbs or
auxiliary verbssuch
as will,
shall, may, might, can, could, must,
ought to, should, would, used to, need are used in
conjunction with main
verbsto express shades of time
and mood. The combination of helping verbs with
main verbs creates what are
called verb phrases
or verb strings. In the following sentence, "will
have been" are helping or
auxiliary verbs and
"studying" is the main
verb; the whole verb string is underlined:
- As of next
August, I will have been
studyingchemistry for ten
years.
Students should remember
that adverbs and
contracted forms are not,
technically, part of the verb. In the sentence, "He
has already started."
the adverb
alreadymodifies
the verb, but it is not really
part of the verb. The same is true
of the 'ntin "He hasn't
started yet" (the adverb not,
represented by the contracted n't,
is not part of the verb,
has started).
Shall,
will and forms of
have, do and
becombine with main verbs to
indicate time and voice.
As auxiliaries, the verbs
be, have and
docan change form to
indicate changes in subject and
time.
- I shall go now.
- He had won the
election.
- They didwrite that
novel together.
- I am going now.
- He was winning
the election.
- They have
beenwriting that novel for a long
time.
Uses of Shall and
Will and
Should
In England,
shall is used to
express the simple future for first person I and
we, as in "Shall we meet by
the river?" Willwould be used in the simple future for
all other persons. Using willin the first person
would express determination on the part of the
speaker, as in "We will finish
this project by tonight, by golly!" Using
shallin second and
third persons would indicate some kind of
promise about the subject,
as in "This shall be
revealed to you in good time." This
usage is
certainly acceptable in the
U.S., although
shallis
used far less frequently. The
distinction between the two is often obscured by the
contraction 'll,which is
the same for both verbs.
In the United States, we seldom
use shallfor anything
other than polite questions (suggesting an
element of permission) in the first-person:
- "Shall we go now?"
- "Shall I
call a doctor for you?"
(In the second sentence, many
writers would use shouldinstead,
although shouldis
somewhat more tentative
than shall.) In the U.S.,
to express the future tense, the verb willis
used in all other
cases.
Shallis often
used in formal situations (legal
or legalistic documents, minutes to meetings,
etc.) to express
obligation, even with
third-person and second-person constructions:
- The board of directors
shall be responsible for payment to stockholders.
- The college president shall
report financial shortfalls to the
executive director each semester."
Shouldis
usually replaced,
nowadays, by would. It
is still used, however, to mean "ought to"
as in
- You really shouldn't do
that.
- If you think that
was amazing, you should have
seen it last night.
In British
English and very
formal American
English, one is apt to
hear or read
shouldwith the first-person pronouns in
expressions of liking such as "I should prefer iced
tea" and in tentative
expressions of opinion such as
- I should imagine they'll vote
Conservative.
- I should have thought
so.
(The New Fowler's Modern
English Usageedited by
R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford,
England. 1996. Used with the
permission of Oxford University Press. Examples
our own.) |
Uses of
Do, Does and Did
In the simple present tense, dowill
function as an auxiliary
to express the negative and
to ask questions.
(Does, however, is substituted for third-person,
singular subjects in the present tense. The
past tense didworks with all
persons, singular and
plural.)
- I don't study at night.
- She doesn't work here anymore.
- Do you attend this
school?
- Does he work here?
These verbs also work
as "short answers," with the main verb
omitted.
- Does she work here? No, she doesn't
work
here.
With "yes-no" questions, the form of
dogoes in front of the subject and the
main verb comes after the
subject:
- Didyour grandmother
knowTruman?
- Do wildflowers growin your
back yard?
Forms of do are useful
in expressing similarity and
differences in conjunction with so and
neither.
- My wife hates
spinach and so does my son.
- My wife doesn't like spinach;
neither do I.
Dois also
helpful because it means you don't have
to repeat the verb:
- Larry excelled in
language studies; so didhis
brother.
- Raoul studies as
hard as his sister
does.
The so-called
emphatic dohas
many uses in English.
- To add
emphasis to an entire
sentence: "He doeslike spinach. He
really does!"
- To add
emphasis to an
imperative: "Docome in."
(actually softens the command)
- To add
emphasis to a
frequency adverb: "He never
didunderstand his
father." "She always
doesmanage to hurt her
mother's feelings."
- To contradict a
negative statement: "You didn't do your
homework, did you?" "Oh, but I didfinish it."
- To ask a
clarifying question about a
previous negative statement: "Ridwell didn't
take the tools." "Then who didtake
the tools?"
- To indicate a
strong concession: "Although the Clintons denied
any wrong-doing, they did return some of the
gifts."
In the absence of other
modal auxiliaries, a form of
dois used in question and
negative constructions known as the
get passive:
- DidRinaldo get selected
by the committee?
- The audience
didn't get riled up by the
politician.
Based on descriptions in
Grammar Dimensions: Form,
Meaning, and Use2nd Ed.
by Jan Frodesen and Janet
Eyring. Heinle & Heinle: Boston. 1997. Examples our
own. |
Uses of
Have, Has and
Had
Forms of the verb to
have are used to create
tenses known as the present perfect and
past perfect. The
perfect tenses indicate that something
has happened in the past; the present
perfect indicating that something
happened and might be continuing to
happen, the past perfect indicating
that something happened prior to something else
happening. (That sounds worse than it
really is!) See the section on
Verb Tenses in the Active
Voicefor further
explanation; also review
material in the Directory of English
Tenses.
To have
is also in
combination with other modal verbs to express
probability and possibility in the
past.
- As an
affirmative statement, to
havecan express how
certain you are that something
happened (when combined with an
appropriate modal +
have+ a
past participle): "Georgia must
have left already." "Clinton might
have known about the gifts." "They may
have voted already."
- As a
negative statement, a
modal is combined with
not + have+ a
past participle to express how
certain you are that something did not
happen: "Clinton might not have known
about the gifts." "I may not have been
there at the time of the crime."
- To ask about
possibility or probability in the past, a
modal is combined with the subject +
have+ past
participle: "Could Clinton have known
about the gifts?"
- For short answers, a
modal is combined with
have: "Did Clinton
know about this?" "I don't know. He
may have." "The evidence is
pretty positive. He must
have."
To have
(sometimes combined with to get) is used to
express a logical inference:
- It's been raining
all week; the basement has to be flooded by
now.
- He hit his
head on the doorway. He has
got to be over seven feet tall!
Haveis often
combined with an infinitive to form an
auxiliary whose meaning is
similar to "must."
- I have to
have a car like that!
- She has to pay
her own tuition at college.
- He has to have
been the first student to try that.
Based on the
analysis in
Grammar Dimensions: Form,
Meaning, and Use2nd Ed.
by Jan Frodesen and Janet
Eyring. Heinle & Heinle: Boston. 1997. Examples our
own. |
Modal
Auxiliaries
Other helping verbs, called
modal
auxiliaries or
modals, such as
can, could, may, might, must, ought
to, shall, should, will, and
would, do not change form for different
subjects. For instance, try substituting any of these
modal auxiliaries for
canwith any of
the subjects listed below.
I you
(singular) he we you
(plural) they |
can write well. |
There is
also a separate section on the
Modal
Auxiliaries, which divides
these verbs into their various meanings of
necessity, advice, ability,
expectation, permission, possibility,
etc., and provides sample
sentences in various tenses. See the section on Conditional Verb
Formsfor help with the modal
auxiliary would. The
shades of meaning among
modal auxiliaries are
multifarious and complex. Most
English-as-a-Second-Language
textbooks will contain at least one
chapter on their usage. For more
advanced students, A
University Grammar of
English, by Randolph
Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum,
contains an excellent, extensive
analysis of
modal
auxiliaries.
The
analysis of Modal
Auxiliariesis
based on a similar
analysis in
The Scott, Foresman
Handbook for Writersby
Maxine Hairston and John J.
Ruszkiewicz. 4th ed. HarperCollins: New York. 1996. The
description of helping verbs on this
page is based
on The Little, Brown
Handbookby H.
Ramsay Fowler and
Jane E. Aaron, &
Kay Limburg. 6th ed. HarperCollins: New York.
1995. By permission of
Addison-Wesley
Educational Publishers Inc.
Examples in all cases
are our own.
Uses of
Can and
Could
The modal
auxiliary
can is
used
- to express ability (in the
sense of being able to do something or knowing how to do
something):
He can speak
Spanish but he can't write
it very well.
- to expression permission
(in the sense of being allowed or permitted to do
something):
Can I talk to my friends
in the library waiting room? (Note that
canis less
formal than
may. Also, some
writers will object to the use of
canin this context.)
- to express theoretical
possibility:
American
automobile makers can make better
cars if they think there's a profit in
it.
The modal
auxiliary could is
used
- to express an
ability in the past:
I could
always beat you at
tennis when we were kids.
- to express past or
future permission:
Could I bury my
cat in your back yard?
- to express present possibility:
We
could always spend the afternoon just
sitting around talking.
- to express possibility or
ability in contingent circumstances:
If he
studied harder, he could pass this
course.
In expressing ability,
can and
couldfrequently also imply willingness:
Can you help me with my
homework? |
Can versus
May
Whether the
auxiliary verb
cancan be used
to express permission or not — "Can I
leave the room now?" ["I don't know if you can, but
you may."] — depends on the level of formality of your
text or situation. As Theodore Bernstein puts it in
The Careful Writer,"a
writer who is attentive to the
proprieties will preserve the traditional
distinction:
canfor ability
or power to do something, mayfor
permission to do it.
The question
is at what level can you
safely ignore the "proprieties." Merriam-Webster's
Dictionary, tenth edition, says the
battle is over and
can can be
used in virtually any situation to
express or ask for permission. Most
authorities, however, recommend a stricter
adherence to the distinction, at
least in formal
situations.
Authority: The
Careful Writer by Theodore Bernstein. The Free Press: New York.
1998. p. 87. |
Uses of
May and
Might
Two of the more troublesome
modal auxiliaries are
may and
might. When used in the context of
granting or seeking permission,
mightis the
past tense of may.
Mightis considerably more
tentative than
may.
- May I leave
class early?
- If I've
finished all my work and
I'm really quiet, might I leave
early?
In the context of expressing possibility,
may and
mightare
interchangeable present and future
forms and might +
have+ past
participle is the past
form:
- She might be my
advisor next semester.
- She may be my
advisor next semester.
- She might have
advised me not to take biology.
Avoid confusing the sense of
possibility in maywith the
implication of might,that a
hypothetical situation has not in
fact occurred. For instance, let's say
there's been a helicopter crash at
the airport. In his initial
report, before all the facts are
gathered, a newscaster could
say that the pilot
"mayhave been
injured." After we discover
that the pilot is in
fact all right, the newscaster
can now say that the pilot
"mighthave been injured"
because it is a
hypothetical situation that
has not occurred. Another example:
a body had been identified after much work
by a detective. It was reported
that "without this
painstaking work, the body
mayhave
remained unidentified." Since the body was, in
fact, identified, mightis
clearly called for.
|
Uses of
Will and Would
In certain contexts,
will and would
are virtually interchangeable, but
there are differences. Notice that the
contracted form 'll is very
frequently used for will.
Willcan be used to
express willingness:
- I'll wash the
dishes if you dry.
- We're going to the movies. Will you join us?
It can also
express intention (especially in the first
person):
- I'll do my exercises
later on.
and
prediction:
- specific: The meeting will be over soon.
- timeless: Humidity will ruin my
hairdo.
- habitual: The
river will overflow its banks every spring.
Wouldcan
also be used to express willingness:
- Would you please
take off your hat?
It can
also express insistence (rather
rare, and with a strong
stress on the word "would"):
- Now you've ruined everything. You
would act that way.
and
characteristic
activity:
- customary: After
work, he would walk to his home in West
Hartford.
- typical
(casual): She would cause the whole
family to be late, every time.
In a main
clause, wouldcan express a
hypothetical meaning:
- My cocker spaniel would
weigh a ton if I let her eat what she
wants.
Finally,
wouldcan express a sense of
probability:
- I hear a
whistle. That would be the five
o'clock train.
|
Uses of Used
to
The auxiliary verb
construction used tois used to
express an action that took
place in the past, perhaps
customarily, but now that action no
longer customarily takes place:
- We used to take long
vacation trips with the whole family.
The spelling of this
verb is a problem for some people
because the "-ed" ending quite
naturally
disappears in
speaking: "We yoostoo take long trips." But it
ought not to disappear in writing.
There are exceptions, though. When the
auxiliary is combined with
another auxiliary,
did,the past tense is
carried by the new
auxiliary and the "-ed"
ending is dropped. This will often
happen in the
interrogative:
- Didn't you use to go jogging every morning
before breakfast?
- It didn't use to be that
way.
Used tocan
also be used to convey the sense of being accustomed to or
familiar with something:
- The tire factory down the
road really stinks, but we're used to it by now.
- I like these old sneakers; I'm
used to them.
Used tois best
reserved for colloquial usage; it
has no place in formal or
academic
text. |
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