Read the following sentences and explanations to gain greater insight into how auxiliary verbs work. An auxiliary or helping verb accompanies the main verb and conveys other nuances that help the reader gain specific insight into the event that is taking place. These can be made up of anywhere from two to four words.Ī main verb, also known as a base verb, indicates the kind of action or condition taking place. In these cases, single-word verbs like is are not accurately capable of describing what happened, so phrases that include auxiliary verbs are used instead. Because it stands alone, it is not an auxiliary verb.Īt other times, an action or condition is ongoing, happening predictably, or occurring in relationship to another event or set of events. This is one of the most common auxiliary verbs, but because it stands alone here, it is not functioning as an auxiliary verb. It’s at times like these that some of the same verbs that are used as auxiliary verbs are instead used as action or linking verbs. Sometimes actions or conditions occur only one time and then they’re over. Both action verbs and linking verbs can accompany auxiliary verbs including the three main ones: do, be, and have.
Action verbs are used to depict activities that are doable, and linking verbs are used to describe conditions. You probably know that every sentence has at least one verb in it.
Grammatical aspect (expresses how verb relates to the flow of time).By expressing tense ( providing a time reference, i.e.They perform their functions in several different ways:
Auxiliary verbs, also known as helping verbs, add functional or grammatical meaning to the clauses in which they appear.