We can define auxiliary verb as, “An auxiliary verb is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it appears such as to express tense, modality, aspect, voice, emphasis, etc.”
Explanation
Auxiliary verbs (also called as helping verbs) are used with a main verb to show the verb’s tense, to form a negative sentence or to ask a question.
Generally, it accompanies a main verb which provides the main semantic content of the clause. It is used to add functional or grammatical meaning in several different ways to the clauses in which they appear.
It helps to express tense (past, present, or future), grammatical aspect (means how verb relates to the flow of time), modality (quantifies verbs) and voice (in order to describe relationship between verb’s action and participants identified by verb’s subject, object, etc). Most common auxiliary verbs are like: have, be, and do.
For example:
Have
It is very important verb which can stand alone in all tenses including have, has, had, having, hadn’t or had not. It denotes the ownership in a sentence and discusses ability or describes appearance. It is used as substitute for the verbs “eat” and “drink.” Such as: “Let’s have breakfast.”
Do
It is used as an action verb which can also stands alone in all tenses including to do, do, done, does, did, didn’t, did not or doesn’t. In order to make a complete verb phrase, it is paired up with another verb. It is also used to add emphasis in the sentence. We generally use ‘do’ to ask questions and make negated clauses.
Be
It is also very important verb used as an action verb and stands alone in all tenses including to be, be, am, been, is, was, are, wasn’t, are not, were, aren’t, weren’t, was not, and were not. It also needs to be paired up with another verb in order to create a complete verb phrase. It can be present or past and singular or plural. It is used to make negative sentences by adding the word “not”.
Following is the list of auxiliary verbs:
List of Common Auxiliary Verbs
There are three common auxiliary verbs:
List of Modal Auxiliary Verbs
There are some modal auxiliary verbs in addition to the three main auxiliary verbs. Modal auxiliary verbs never change form. Following are modal auxiliary verbs:
Can, could, may, might, must, ought to, shall, should, will, would, dare, need, ought, etc.
Following are some examples showing the use of auxiliary verbs and verb phrases, such as:
Following are some rules and tips to use auxiliary verbs in the sentence:
The papers will have been scrutinized by the English teacher. (This sentence contains three auxiliary verbs and one main verb). In this sentence, auxiliary verbs are ‘will, have, been’ and main verb is ‘scrutinized’.
Auxiliary verb exercises given below will help you in analyzing your knowledge about auxiliary verb. Just go through all the details given above about the auxiliary verb and check your skill by doing following exercises for auxiliary verb. We have used auxiliary verbs in the following sentences; you need to check your skill by identifying auxiliary verbs in each sentence:
Answers: 1 – were, 2 – has, 3 – did, 4 – didn’t, 5 – is, 6 – doesn’t, 7 – didn’t, 8 – don’t, 9 – were, 10 – hasn’t, 11 – do, 12 – has, 13 – do, 14 – do, 15 – did, 16 – is, 17 – were, 18 – is being, 19 – have, 20 – have, 21 – has, 22 – will has been, 23 – have, 24 – do not, 25 – is not, 26 – isn’t, 27 – haven’t, 28 – have not, 29 – don’t, 30 – didn’t
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