Auxiliary Verbs in English
The following sections consider auxiliary verbs in English. A list of auxiliary verbs is produced, and then the diagnostics that motivate this special class (subject-auxiliary inversion and negation with not) are presented. The modal verbs are included in this class due to their behavior with respect to these diagnostics.
Read more about this topic: Auxiliary Verb
Famous quotes containing the words verbs and/or english:
“He crafted his writing and loved listening to those tiny explosions when the active brutality of verbs in revolution raced into sweet established nouns to send marching across the page a newly commissioned army of words-on-maneuvers, all decorated in loops, frets, and arrowlike flourishes.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“The Roman rule was, to teach a boy nothing that he could not learn standing. The old English rule was, “All summer in the field, and all winter in the study.” And it seems as if a man should learn to plant, or to fish, or to hunt, that he might secure his subsistence at all events, and not be painful to his friends and fellow men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)