Do you know what an auxiliary verb is? This auxiliary verb will provide you with all of the information you need on auxiliary verbs, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!
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Kevin
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December 17, 2021
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What is an auxiliary verb?
According to Your Dictionary, auxiliary verbs are also known as helping verbs. These verbs help to clarify whether an action occurs, when the action of the main verb takes place, who or what is responsible for that action, and whether we are making a statement or asking a question. There are many different auxiliary verbs. The top three are a form of be, a form of do, and a form of have, but there are also modal verbs or modal auxiliary verbs that are used to express conditionality, express mood, expresses permission, necessity, obligation, ability, wishful desire, and other nuances.
Many English grammar rules use auxiliary words to express modality of verb tenses. While the word order may be confusing, you will catch on in no time. These can be used in present continuous tense, an interrogative mood, and other verb types. It can even be used in a negative form in negative sentences.
Both regular and modal auxiliaries can be used in many different sentence tenses in English grammar. These include the past participle, passive voice, active voice, the progressive tense to refer to ongoing actions, the third person, a negative statement, the past perfect tenses, the present participle, the present perfect tense, the past progressive, the past continuous tenses, the present progressive, emphatic statements, progressive sentences, conditional clauses, the simple future, passive sentences, active sentences, and more. This part of speech is very useful and is often part of a verb phrase.
Many different languages also contain words that mean auxiliary verb. You may notice that some of these translations of auxiliary 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 auxiliary verb is provided by Word Sense.
- German: Auxiliar (neut.), Auxiliare (neut.), Auxiliarverb (neut.), Hilfsverb (neut.), Hilfsverbum (neut.), Hilfswort (neut.), Hilfszeitwort (neut.)
- Portuguese: verbo auxiliar (masc.)
- French: verbe auxiliaire (masc.), auxiliaire (masc.)
- Finnish: apuverbi
- Spanish: verbo auxiliar (masc.), auxiliar
- Irish: briathar cúnta (masc.)
- Mandarin: 助動詞, 助动词 (zhùdòngcí)
- Greek: βοηθητικό ρήμα (neut.)
- Norman: vèrbe auxiliaithe (masc.)
- Latin: verbum auxiliare
- Scottish Gaelic: gnìomhair taiceil (masc.)
- Romanian: verb auxiliar (neut.), verb ajutător (neut.)
- Slovene: pomožni glagol (masc.)
- Lithuanian: pagalbinis veiksmažodis (masc.)
- Luxembourgish: Hëllefsverb (neut.)
- Japanese: 助動詞 (じょどうし, jodōshi), 補助動詞 (hojo dōshi)
- Malay: kata kerja bantu
- Czech: pomocné sloveso (neut.)
- Indonesian: kata kerja bantu, verba bantu
- Zazaki: fiilo peştiger
- Slovak: pomocné sloveso (neut.)
- Polish: czasownik posiłkowy (m-in)
- Latvian: palīga darbības vārds (masc.)
- Dutch: hulpwerkwoord (neut.)
- Kurdish: lêkera alîkar
- Esperanto: helpa verbo
- Armenian: օժանդակ բայ
- Thai: กริยานุเคราะห์, กริยาช่วย
- Italian: verbo ausiliaro (masc.), ausiliare
- Danish: hjælpeudsagnsord (neut.), hjælpeverbum (neut.)
- Ido: helpoverbo
- Bulgarian: спомагателен глагол
- Novial: auxiliari verbe
- Russian: вспомога́тельный глаго́л (masc.)
- Hungarian: segédige
- Swedish: hjälpverb (neut.)
- Icelandic: hjálparsögn (fem.)
- Yiddish: העלפֿווערב, הילפֿסווערב
- Catalan: verb auxiliar (masc.)
- Faroese: hjálparsagnorð (neut.)
- Turkish: yardmcı fiil, yardımcı fiil, yardımcı eylem
- Korean: 조동사
What are examples of auxiliary verbs?
Auxiliary 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 auxiliary verbs that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use. Take a look at these auxiliary verb examples in the following sentences and see how many you can identify the auxiliary verb in!
- We had wished for pie for dessert, and were rewarded.
- The boy did not dare ask for a new shirt when he stained his on Friday.
- They should have a willingness to learn chemistry if they want to be doctors.
- The novel will be a quick read.
- None of her emails were in her inbox. Her fingertips clacked on the keyboard to try and find them.
- My boss David had tried to eat his vegetables but did not have the capability.
- We ought to complete our lesson on a foregin language in September.
What are other grammatical terms?
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.
- inflection | inflected | inflectional
- article
- tense
- superlative
- common noun
- parenthetical | parenthetically
- similative
- that-clause
- double object
- main verb
- antecedent
- construction
- noun (n.)
- pronoun (pron.)
- mass noun
- indefinite
- personal pronoun
- nominative
- quasi-
- nominal relative | nominal relative clause
- feminine
- prefix
- ellipsis | elliptical
- stem
- cataphoric
- main clause
- infinitive
- special use
- abstract
- subjective
- positive
- verbal noun
- construed (const., constr.)
- verb (v.)
- third-person
- finite
- appositive
- present participle
- proper noun | proper name
- dual
- intransitive
- phrase (phr.)
- simple
- singular
- noun phrase
- anaphoric
- phrasal verb
- past tense
- adverb (adv.)
- non-finite
- count noun
- protasis
- conditional
- morpheme
- transitive
- reflexive
- subjunctive
- indirect question
- apodosis and protasis
- postmodify | postmodifier
- gerund
- unmarked genitive
- dative
- masculine
- helping verb
- collocation | collocate
- concrete
- pleonasm | pleonastic
- parasynthetic
- combination
- apposition
- cognate object
- progressive
- interrogative
- direct speech
- preposition (prep.)
- indirect speech
- head
- pro-form
- prepositional passive
- intensifier
- second person
- accusative
- passive infinitive
- subject
- agent noun
- comparative
- compound | compounding
- element
- subordinate clause
- attributive
- demonstrative
- optative
- non-referential
- base form
- past participle
- prepositional phrase
- modify | modifier
- agree | agreement
- declarative
- collective noun
- bare infinitive
- absolute (absol.)
- indirect object
- filler
- modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
- periphrasis | periphrastic
- adjective
- person
- perfect
- definite article
- possessive
- active
- instrumental
- direct question
- indicative
- complementary
- combining form (comb. form)
- possessive pronoun
- first person
- premodify | premodifier
- participial adjective
- genitive
- mood
- case
- object | direct object | indirect object
- passive
- conjunction (conj.)
- neuter
- predicative
- zero
- to-infinitive
- causative
- prepositional object
- direct object
- interjection
- locative
- determiner
- participle | past participle | present participle
- imperative (imper.)
- relative
- suffix
- part of speech
- copular verb | copula
- anticipatory
- possessive adjective
- adverbial | adverbially
- sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
- gender
- indirect passive
- impersonal (impers.)
- present tense
- complement
- clause
- plural
- number
- auxiliary verb | auxiliary
- objective
- vocative
Overall, an auxiliary verb is a verb that helps clarify things about an action. This repetition of verbs can form different types of complete sentence.
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