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Functions of the English Helping Verb

The verb be (or often get) is used in the passive form to express an action where the subject is unknowable, not known, or of less interest than the action itself, e.g. the window is broken, the window gets broken.

This form, also known as the continuous form, uses the verb be. It is used to express the speaker's interpretation of the temporal nature of the event, e.g. I am doing my homework.

The verb have is used in the perfective form to look back, i.e. retrospectively, at a past action from the present time. Or in other words, it is used to express an action that still has relevance to the present, e.g. Peter has fallen in love.

There are nine modal verbs: can/could, may/might, shall/should, will/would and must. They differ from the other auxiliaries both in that they are defective verbs, and in that they can never function as main verbs. They express the speaker's (or listener's) judgment or opinion at the moment of speaking. Some of the modal verbs have been seen as a conditional tense form in English.

Some schools of thought consider could to represent the past tense of can. However, according to Michael Lewis¹, (The English Verb), this is not always true. “Could I get you something?”, clearly is not expressing Past Time. Lewis instead suggests that could is a remote form of can. It is evident after re-examining the usage of could in this light, that remoteness does describe the general meaning, e.g.

• I couldn't do it. (remoteness of time)
• It could happen. (remoteness of possibility)
• Could you do me a favor? (remoteness of relationship)

The remaining modal auxiliaries can be viewed in this same manner. Lewis covers this area in detail in his book, see reference.

Because, aside from the verb to be (or to have in British English), only auxiliaries can be inverted to form questions and only auxiliaries can take negation directly, a dummy auxiliary do is used for questions and negatives when only a full verb exists in the positive statement (i.e. there are no auxiliaries in the positive, non-interrogative form). The same dummy do is used for emphasis in the positive statement form.

For example, if the positive statement form is:

• I know the way.

the interrogative, negative and emphatic forms are respectively:

• Do you know the way?
• I don't know the way.
• I do know the way.

Compare this with:

• I should know the way.
• Should I know the way?
• I shouldn't know the way.
• (and the emphatic form has to be marked by intonation or punctuation).

English contains many verb phrases that function as quasi-auxiliaries, such as be going to, used to, is about to. These quasi-auxiliaries require an infinitive. Others take a gerund (e.g. need, as in need fixing, in American English), past participle (e.g. get, as in get done), or other verb form

The English Verb 'An Exploration of Structure and Meaning', Michael Lewis. Language Teaching Publications. ISBN 0-906717-40-X

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