Do you know what a helping verb is? This helping verb will provide you with all of the information you need on helping verbs, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!
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Kevin
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November 19, 2021
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Common Questions
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What is a helping verb?
According to Thought Co, a helping verb is is a verb that comes before the main verb (also known as a lexical verb) in a sentence. Together, the helping verb and the main verb form what is known as a verb phrase. A helping verb can also be known as an auxiliary verb or modal verb. These can be used in a progressive aspect/progressive tense by adding ing to the main verb such as the present progressive tense. These can also be used in the perfect aspect or perfect verb tenses – past perfect tense form of the verb, present perfect, future perfect, past perfect continuous, present perfect continuous, and future perfect continuous – all by adding ed, ing, and or using a second helping verb. Each different conjugation can express tense slightly differently. Sometimes the word not is added to form a negative participle. A helping verb always comes before or in front of a main verb. More than one helping verb can be used in a sentence or verb phrase. Helping verbs are all of the following: be, been, being, was, were, have, has, had, should, would, could, am, is, are, do, does, did, may, can, must, might, shall, will, ought. You can use a modal helping verb or auxiliary helping verb as a part of the verb phrase to clarify the meaning of the main verb. Native English speakers usually use these common auxiliary verb without thinking to express probability, express ability, express possibility, express confidence, express future tense, future actions, or future likelihood, express negation, and more in the grammatical structure of a sentence.
Many different languages also contain words that mean helping verb. You may notice that some of these translations of helping verb look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of helping verb is provided by Word Sense.
- Latin: verbum auxiliare
- Esperanto: helpa verbo
- Scottish Gaelic: gnìomhair taiceil (masc.)
- Russian: вспомога́тельный глаго́л (masc.)
- Romanian: verb auxiliar (neut.), verb ajutător (neut.)
- Irish: briathar cúnta (masc.)
- Spanish: verbo auxiliar (masc.), auxiliar
- Luxembourgish: Hëllefsverb (neut.)
- Catalan: verb auxiliar (masc.)
- Malay: kata kerja bantu
- Bulgarian: спомагателен глагол
- Ido: helpoverbo
- Indonesian: kata kerja bantu, verba bantu
- Lithuanian: pagalbinis veiksmažodis (masc.)
- Japanese: 助動詞 (じょどうし, jodōshi), 補助動詞 (hojo dōshi)
- Latvian: palīga darbības vārds (masc.)
- Slovak: pomocné sloveso (neut.)
- Faroese: hjálparsagnorð (neut.)
- Finnish: apuverbi
- Danish: hjælpeudsagnsord (neut.), hjælpeverbum (neut.)
- Armenian: օժանդակ բայ
- Kurdish: lêkera alîkar
- Dutch: hulpwerkwoord (neut.)
- Polish: czasownik posiłkowy (m-in)
- Turkish: yardmcı fiil, yardımcı fiil, yardımcı eylem
- Italian: verbo ausiliaro (masc.), ausiliare
- Czech: pomocné sloveso (neut.)
- Icelandic: hjálparsögn (fem.)
- Portuguese: verbo auxiliar (masc.)
- French: verbe auxiliaire (masc.), auxiliaire (masc.)
- Slovene: pomožni glagol (masc.)
- Zazaki: fiilo peştiger
- Korean: 조동사
- Hungarian: segédige
- German: Auxiliar (neut.), Auxiliare (neut.), Auxiliarverb (neut.), Hilfsverb (neut.), Hilfsverbum (neut.), Hilfswort (neut.), Hilfszeitwort (neut.)
- Norman: vèrbe auxiliaithe (masc.)
- Yiddish: העלפֿווערב, הילפֿסווערב
- Mandarin: 助動詞, 助动词 (zhùdòngcí)
- Swedish: hjälpverb (neut.)
- Thai: กริยานุเคราะห์, กริยาช่วย
- Greek: βοηθητικό ρήμα (neut.)
- Novial: auxiliari verbe
What are examples of helping verbs?
Helping verbs can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or grammatical technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! Below are a couple of examples of helping verbs that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use. Take a look at these helping verb examples in the following sentences and see how many you can identify the helping verb in!
- When John learned that Sally had won the grand prize in the chicken pot pie competition, he threw a fit.
- Out of necessity, visitors would use the shades provided.
- James and Sam could sing the tune of Jingle Bells well.
- Christie is good at basketball, and her mom is good at getting the large coffee stain out of her uniform shirt.
- Ross was in horrible pain after soccer practice, and did not want dessert.
What are other literary techniques and devices?
There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you.
- demonstrative
- finite
- instrumental
- adverb (adv.)
- gerund
- plural
- verbal noun
- case
- first person
- neuter
- apodosis and protasis
- mood
- transitive
- to-infinitive
- auxiliary verb | auxiliary
- present participle
- anticipatory
- participle | past participle | present participle
- conjunction (conj.)
- indicative
- direct question
- appositive
- parasynthetic
- base form
- prepositional passive
- nominal relative | nominal relative clause
- collocation | collocate
- predicative
- prefix
- apposition
- infinitive
- zero
- indirect object
- periphrasis | periphrastic
- optative
- adverbial | adverbially
- non-referential
- combination
- pro-form
- subjunctive
- anaphoric
- dative
- personal pronoun
- subordinate clause
- compound | compounding
- pronoun (pron.)
- phrase (phr.)
- subject
- intransitive
- comparative
- main verb
- passive infinitive
- progressive
- indirect question
- intensifier
- interjection
- abstract
- indefinite
- prepositional object
- person
- collective noun
- masculine
- construction
- possessive pronoun
- noun phrase
- dual
- simple
- tense
- absolute (absol.)
- mass noun
- perfect
- part of speech
- accusative
- common noun
- superlative
- count noun
- object | direct object | indirect object
- third-person
- special use
- complementary
- unmarked genitive
- cataphoric
- preposition (prep.)
- antecedent
- interrogative
- indirect speech
- active
- verb (v.)
- vocative
- second person
- attributive
- impersonal (impers.)
- ellipsis | elliptical
- main clause
- imperative (imper.)
- sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
- past tense
- stem
- present tense
- quasi-
- direct object
- modify | modifier
- double object
- bare infinitive
- positive
- cognate object
- feminine
- clause
- prepositional phrase
- proper noun | proper name
- definite article
- possessive adjective
- relative
- adjective
- subjective
- conditional
- nominative
- head
- filler
- objective
- reflexive
- construed (const., constr.)
- similative
- morpheme
- helping verb
- pleonasm | pleonastic
- genitive
- indirect passive
- protasis
- singular
- agent noun
- phrasal verb
- gender
- suffix
- direct speech
- combining form (comb. form)
- element
- determiner
- passive
- past participle
- non-finite
- complement
- inflection | inflected | inflectional
- participial adjective
- article
- noun (n.)
- possessive
- that-clause
- parenthetical | parenthetically
- agree | agreement
- premodify | premodifier
- locative
- copular verb | copula
- declarative
- number
- modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
- concrete
- causative
- postmodify | postmodifier
Overall, a helping verb is a verb that comes before another verb that slightly alters its meaning.
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