Question posted in my Personal Messages box by Baklis, Forum member (October 13, 2014):Sir Joe, my classmate and I argued about this matter: “I didn’t (see, saw) her.” Which is correct and why?
My reply to Baklis:You and your classmate are not the only ones confused by that sentence construction; not a few native speakers and nonnative English learners get tripped by it as well. They invariably get into long arguments over the proper tense for the main verb in such negative sentences, then get deadlocked when each other’s choice of tense doesn’t turn to be grammatically defensible after all.
Before proceeding to examine that deadlock, I need to tell you offhand that the correct form of the verb for that sentence is “see”: “I didn’t
see her.” Its uncontracted form is, of course, “I did not see her,” where the negative sense of the verb “see” is expressed by the verb phrase “did not see.” In that phrase, “see” is the main verb followed by the past tense of the auxiliary or helping verb “do”; the function word “not” in between them negates the action of the verb “see.”
Now there are two peculiar rules in English—I’m almost tempted to say “quirkish” because only very few other languages are known to use them—that must be followed when constructing negative statements.
Rule 1 – It’s the auxiliary or helping verb that takes the tense. The first rule is that when indicating the negative of a statement in the past tense, it’s not the main verb but the auxiliary verb or helping verb that takes the tense. This is why in the sentence “I didn’t see her,” the helping verb “do” takes the past tense “did” while the main verb “see” doesn’t take any tense at all. Although it looks like “see” is in the present tense, “see” in this particular construction definitely isn’t the present-tense form; instead, it is the infinitive form of the verb “see” stripped of the function word “to”—a
bare infinitive that results when “to” is dropped from the infinitive “to see.” (Check out these Forum postings:
“The choice between the bare infinitive and the full infinitive”;
“So which do we use: a gerund, a full infinitive, or a bare infinitive?”) The choice in usage here is therefore not between the past-tense “saw” and the present-tense “see”; indeed, the inability to recognize this crucial grammatical distinction very often leads to the deadlock in arguments over which verb takes the tense in negative sentence constructions.
IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDEPLAYER.COMRule 2 – The helping verb must come before the word that negates the main verb. The second rule is that structurally, negative sentences must position the helping verb before the word that negates the action of the main verb. Thus, in the sentence “I
did not see her,” the past tense of the helping verb “do” comes before the negator “not,” after which the bare infinitive form of the main verb “see” follows. This is why unlike other languages that negate sentences by putting a negator word at their beginning or tail end, English uses the negative form “do not” or (much more often) its contracted form “don’t.” Only in very rare archaic constructions or in poetry does English negate sentences with “not”—and only at their tail end at that, as in “I saw her
not.” (Of course, the abominable constructions “
Not I saw her” and “I
not saw her” are absolutely not allowable in English.)
We must also keep in mind that other than make negatives, the auxiliary verb “do” is used as well to indicate questions and to emphasize statements in English.
IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDEPLAYER.COM IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDEPLAYER.COM“Do” to indicate a question. The auxiliary verb “do” takes the front-end position in the construction of present-tense and past-tense questions, as in “
Does he take criticism badly?” and “
Did he take criticism badly?” (In future-tense questions, however, the auxiliary verb “will” or “would” takes the place of “do,” as in “
Will he take criticism badly?” and “
Would he take criticism badly?”) Take note that in both past-tense and present-tense questions, it is the helping verb “do” that takes the tense, not the main verb. As in the case of negative statements, the main verb remains in its base form (the infinitive stripped of the function word “to”), as in “take” in the questions given above. (The main verb in future-tense questions introduced by “will” and “would” likewise doesn’t take the tense.)
“Do” to emphasize a statement. To emphasize a response to present-tense and past-tense questions in English, the auxiliary verb “do” is positioned right before the main verb of the response, as in “I
do ride the MRT” and “I
did ride the MRT.” Such constructions use “do” as so-called
intensifiers of the reply to probing “do” questions, in this case “
Do you really ride the MRT?” and “
Did you really ride the MRT?” Again, in emphatic responses of this kind, it is the helping verb “do” that takes the tense and the main verb takes its base form, as “ride” does in example above.
“Do” to stand for the main verb. To minimize repetition, the auxiliary verb “do” can also be used in an end-sentence position to stand for the main verb in present-tense and past-tense comparative sentences, as in “Amy
appreciates (appreciated) my community work more than Elisa
does (did).” Obviously, such a construction is much better, more forthright, and more elegant than “Amy
appreciates (appreciated) my community work more than Elisa
appreciates (appreciated) my community work.”
I trust that you and your classmate will finally have a meeting of the minds once you’ve shared with him this discussion of the uses of the auxiliary verb “do.”
