XXXIV AUXILIARY VERBS The richness and flexibility of English in its auxiliary forms is one of its most striking characteristics.―JOYNES. When a full verb is associated with an auxiliary it is always made into a verbal, so that the function of predication is transferred to the auxiliary. If more than one auxiliary is used, only one of these keeps its finite form; all the others are verbals.-SWEET. The auxiliary is always the verb form, the finite predicate; to say auxiliary and verb is an error.-JOYNES. Our auxiliary verbs give us a power which the ancients with all their varieties of mood and inflections of tense could never attain.-SOUTHEY. There is a small but very important class of verbs that are not used alone as complete predicates but are combined with the participles and infinitives of other verbs to make verb phrases. Most of the so-called verbal inflections of voice, mood, and tense are made in this way. The final participle or infinitive in the phrase expresses the principal idea and is sometimes called the principal verb. Yet it is the first auxiliary that has the assertive power and is the true finite verb. Thus "may have been done" is a phrase of the verb do, but the first auxiliary may is the asserting word. But while the auxiliary retains the power of predication, its original meaning has been greatly modified and is sometimes almost or entirely lost in the combined verb form. The following participle or infinitive also loses some of its distinctive character in the blending of forms. A participle loses some of its adjective character and an infinitive loses its sign to. The amount of specialized meaning that is retained, however, differs greatly in the different auxiliaries. For this reason they are treated in very different ways by grammarians, some of whom restrict the term auxiliary to those having no distinctive meaning of their own, but whose office is entirely structural or functional. It seems convenient, however, to consider together all the verbs that have more or less of the auxiliary character. The verbs used as auxiliaries are be, have, do, shall, will, may, can, must, might, could, would, and should. Let, and sometimes also need and dare, resemble the auxiliaries in omitting the sign to before the following infinitive. Ought retains the sign to but is similar in meaning to some of the auxiliaries, and like them is defective in its principal parts. Be, have, do, and will are used also as principal verbs with definite meanings. They have participles and infinitives of their own and can themselves take auxiliaries. May and can also retain to some extent their own meanings when in combination. May, can, must, might, could, would, and should, are often called the modal auxiliaries, since they take the place of a mood inflection. Must is essentially indicative, expressing a necessary fact rather than a contingent one. The other modals are potential, and some of them are often subjunctive in character. 66 Be is the most important and most widely used of all the auxiliaries. It occurs in all passive and progressive verb phrases. Have is also very extended in its use, occurring in the perfect tense forms, but with its original meaning almost wholly lost. In the older English, be was used with intransitive verbs where we now use have. The idiom is still sometimes used, as, "I am arrived." Do as an auxiliary has lost its original meaning. Its chief use is to supply an auxiliary to a phrase that seems to need one, either for emphasis, as, "I did make the effort," or for reasons of word order, as in interrogative and negative sentences. In the older English, did was often used as an auxiliary without emphasis, as," The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat, "It did address itself to motion."-HAMLET. The use of auxiliaries is a modern form of language growth. It is most highly developed in English. German and the other Teutonic languages, however, have similar sets of modal auxiliaries, though these differ considerably from those of English in their idiomatic usages. Auxiliaries have been one of the most potent factors in the change of English from an inflectional to a highly analytic language. They give great freedom and wide range of expression and also furnish many of the idiomatic mysteries that make English difficult to foreigners. The study of the auxiliaries gives a large and interesting field for philological investigation. XXXV VERB PHRASES What is the use of teaching the child that successions of words, each of which has its own meaning, and any two of which may be separated at pleasure by the introduction of other words, each of which has also, no more and no less, its own meaning, are voices, moods, and tenses?-RICHARD GRANT WHITE. A conjugation of the verb can hardly be said to exist. We have laid aside not only the passive and middle voice, the optative and other moods of Greek verbs, but we have abandoned also the many tenses of the Latin verb which the Romance languages still retain. And after thus stripping the verb of all power to express tense and mood the tendency of our day is to free it more and more even of its connection with person.-M. SCHELE DE VERE. We should draw a distinct line between the genuine inflection of the verb and those verbal phrases, "compound forms," by which the scheme of conjugation is in part filled up.-WHITNEY. The amount of true inflection that belongs to the verb in English is exceedingly small. There are inflectional changes for the past tense, the third person singular of the present tense, and each of the two participles. There are ancient forms used with the subject thou in all the modes and tenses. If we add several irregularities of the verb be we have well-nigh covered the true inflection of English verbs. To state the same thought in another way: An English verb-with the one exception of the verb becan have only eight distinct forms, as, write, writest, writeth, writes, writing, wrote, wrotest, written. Three of these (writest, writeth, and wrotest) are practically obsolete. In regular verbs only four forms are in common use, as, sail, sails, sailing, sailed. Most of the so-called verb-forms are phrases made by uniting participles and infinitives with the auxiliary verbs. In any verb phrase the first word has the assertive power and is the true verb, though the last word expresses the most significant idea and gives the name to the phrase. Thus, "I have seen" is a phrase of see, but have is the asserting word. The phrase can also be separated by adverbial words which are no part of the phrase but have their own distinct meaning and use, as, "He will probably be elected." The method of the older grammars in conjugating a verb with various subjects through all the phrase forms of the moods and tenses had little value as a school exercise. Pupils should be able, however, to recognize all the classes of verb phrases. These may be grouped as follows: Passive-formed by the auxiliary be with the past participle. Perfect-known by the auxiliary have and found in both voices. Future having the auxiliary will or shall. can, must, might, could, would, and should, |