Auxiliaries for Children

Auxiliaries

Auxiliaries, also known as auxiliary verbs or helping verbs, are verbs that accompany the main verb in a sentence to express tense, aspect, voice, mood, or other grammatical features.

Types of Auxiliaries:

Primary Auxiliaries:
These include " be ," " have ," and " do ."
They are used to form different tenses, questions, negatives, and emphasis.

"Be": Used for progressive tenses (Example: present continuous: "I am reading") and passive voice (Example: present passive: "The book is read").

"Have": Used for perfect tenses (Example: present perfect: "I have finished") and perfect progressive tenses (Example: present perfect continuous: "I have been reading").

"Do": Used for emphasis, questions, and negatives in present simple and past simple tenses (Example: present simple: "I do like it," "Do you like it?").

Modal Auxiliaries:
Include " can ," " could ," " may ," " might ," " must ," " shall ," " should ," " will ," " would ," and " ought to ."
They are used to express possibility, necessity, permission, ability, obligation, and advice.
Example: "She can swim," "You should study," "He must go."

Function of Auxiliaries:

Expressing Tense: Auxiliaries are used to indicate the time frame of an action or event (e.g., present, past, future).
Example: "She is reading" (present tense), "He has finished" (past tense), "They will go" (future tense).

Forming Questions: Auxiliaries are used to invert the subject and verb to form questions.
Example: "You are coming" (statement), "Are you coming?" (question).

Forming Negatives: Auxiliaries are used to create negative sentences by adding "not" after the auxiliary.
Example: "She has finished" (affirmative), "She has not finished" or "She hasn't finished" (negative).

Expressing Modality: Auxiliaries are used to convey various degrees of possibility, necessity, permission, ability, obligation, and advice.
Example: "You should study" (advice), "They can swim" (ability), "He might be late" (possibility).

Position in Sentences:

Auxiliaries typically come before the main verb in a verb phrase. In questions and negatives, the auxiliary is placed before the subject.
Example: "She has been waiting," "Has she been waiting?" "She has not been waiting."

Contracted Forms:

Auxiliaries are often contracted with other words, such as "not" or pronouns, in informal speech and writing.
Example: "She isn'tcoming," "They haven't finished."