How many auxiliary verbs are there in English?Two years after asking the very instructive the questions about auxiliary and linking verbs that this column answered last week, South Africa-based Forum member Spelling asked if it was true that there are only three auxiliary verbs in English, namely “do,” “be,” and “have.” She also asked for confirmation if it’s correct that their different forms are as follows: “do,” “does,” and “did’; “am,” “is,” and “are”; and “have,” “has,” and “had.”
I clarified that the count of
auxiliary verbs in English rises to as many as 23 when we include the so-called
modal auxiliaries, but “do,” “be,” and “have” indeed hold the distinction as the three primary auxiliary verbs in the sense that they are the most commonly used.
IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDESHARE.NETHer listing of the different forms of the auxiliary verb “do”—“does,” “do,” and “did”—was complete. In the case of “have,” however, the progressive-tense form “having” has to be added to make a total of four: “has,” “have,” “had,” and “having.” And for “be,” she listed only its three present-tense forms “am,” “is,” and “are”; to these must be added the past-tense forms “was” and “were,” the progressive tense form “being,” and the past-participle “been,” making a total of seven forms.
We must keep in mind, though, that the auxiliary verbs “be,” “do,” and “have” can also function as
main verbs. For instance, in the sentence “You
be the one,” the verb “be” works as a main verb to denote asking someone to assume a certain role; in “She
does all the work here,” the verb “does” functions as the main verb to denote performing all the work; and in “They
have lots of money,” the verb “have” works as a main verb to denote possession of lots of money.
And before continuing our count of the English auxiliary verbs, we need to come up with a more inclusive definition of that term. An
auxiliary verb—also loosely called a
“helping verb” or
“verbal auxiliary”—is one that enables or helps a main verb express (1)
tense, (2)
voice, (3)
emphasis, or (4)
modality. Another way of saying this is that an auxiliary verb adds functional or grammatical content to the information expressed by the main verb.
As examples, in the sentence “They
did take the loot,” the verb “did” works as an intensifier for the verb “take” to emphasize that the action was, in fact, done; in the sentence “He
is being fooled,” the auxiliary verb “being” works with the linking verb “is” to form the present progressive passive tense of the main verb “fooled”; and in the sentence “She
has taken my share of the cake,” the auxiliary verb “has” works with the past participle “taken” to form the present perfect tense of the verb “take.”
Now we are ready to add to these primary auxiliary verbs the subclass of auxiliary verbs that, unlike the former, don’t inflect or can’t change form at all. These are the so-called
modal auxiliaries, or
modals for short. The most commonly used modals, of course, are “can,” “could,” “may,” “might,” “must,” “shall,” “should,” “will,” and “would.”
IMAGE CREDIT: GRAMMAR.NETFunctionally, a modal auxiliary or modal works with a main verb to express (1)
conditionality, (2)
necessity, (3)
obligation, (4)
ability, or (5)
wishful desire. In the sentence “She
can speak French fluently,” for instance, the modal “can” works to convey the ability of the subject to speak French fluently. In the sentence “She
does speak French fluently,” in contrast, the auxiliary verb “do” acts as an intensifier to emphasize the subject’s ability to, in fact, speak French fluently.
To complete our full-dress review of the English verbs, we will take up in detail next week how each of these modal auxiliaries work.
(Next:
How the English modal auxiliaries work) November 29, 2018
This essay, 1,119th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the November 22, 2018 print edition of The Manila Times
, © 2018 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
