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 English were very backward to explore and settle the continent which they had stumbled upon. The French preceded them both in their attempts to colonize the continent of North America ... and in their first permanent settlement ... And the right of possession, naturally enough, was the one which England mainly respected and recognized in the case of Spain, of Portugal, and also of France, from the time of Henry VII.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)