English auxiliary verbs

In English, the adjective auxiliary was "formerly applied to any formative or subordinate elements of language, e.g. prefixes, prepositions."[2] As applied to verbs, its conception was originally rather vague and varied significantly.

The list of auxiliary verbs in Modern English, along with their inflected forms, is shown in the following table.

Some linguists consider membership in this syntactic class the defining property for English auxiliary verbs. The chief difference between this syntactic definition of "auxiliary verb" and the traditional definition given in the section above is that the syntactic definition includes forms of the verb be even when used simply as a copular verb (in sentences like I am hungry and It was a cat) where it does not accompany any other verb.[9] In Modern English, auxiliary verbs are distinguished from lexical verbs by the NICER properties, as shown in the following table.

An auxiliary is traditionally understood as a verb that "helps" another verb by adding (only) grammatical information to it.[16] On this basis, English auxiliaries include:

• forms of the verb do (do, does, did) when used with another verb to form questions, negation, emphasis, etc. (see do-support);
• forms of the verb have (have, has, had) when used to express perfect aspect;
• forms of the verb be (am, are, is, was, were) when used to express progressive aspect or passive voice;

Look up Appendix:English modal verbs in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• the modal verbs, used in a variety of meanings, principally relating to modality.

The following are examples of sentences containing the above types of auxiliary verbs:

Do you want tea? – do is an auxiliary accompanying the verb want, used here to form a question.

He had given his all. – had is an auxiliary accompanying the past participle given, expressing perfect aspect.

We are singing. – are is an auxiliary accompanying the present participle singing, expressing progressive aspect.

It was destroyed. – was is an auxiliary accompanying the past participle destroyed, expressing passive voice.

He can do it now. – can is a modal auxiliary accompanying the verb do.

However, the above understanding of auxiliaries is not the only one in the literature, particularly in the case of forms of the verb be, which may be called auxiliary even when not accompanying another verb. Other approaches to defining auxiliary verbs are described below.

Contractions are a common feature of English, used frequently in ordinary speech. In written English, contractions are used in mostly informal writing and sometimes in formal writing.[18] They usually involve the elision of a vowel – an apostrophe being inserted in its place in written English – possibly accompanied by other changes. Many of these contractions involve auxiliary verbs and their negations, although not all of these have common contractions, and there are also certain other contractions not involving these verbs.

Contractions were first used in speech during the early 17th century and in writing during the mid 17th century when not lost its stress and tone and formed the contraction -n't. Around the same time, contracted auxiliaries were first used. When it was first used, it was limited in writing to only fiction and drama. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of contractions in writing spread outside of fiction such as personal letters, journalism, and descriptive texts.[18]

Certain contractions tend to be restricted to less formal speech and very informal writing, such as John'd or Mary'd for "John/Mary would" (compare the personal pronoun forms I'd and you'd, which are much more likely to be encountered in relatively informal writing). This applies in particular to constructions involving consecutive contractions, such as wouldn't've for "would not have".

Contractions in English are generally not mandatory as in some other languages. It is almost always acceptable to use the uncontracted form, although in speech this may seem overly formal. This is often done for emphasis: I am ready! The uncontracted form of an auxiliary or copula must be used in elliptical sentences where its complement is omitted: Who's ready? I am! (not *I'm!).

Some contractions lead to homophony, which sometimes causes errors in writing. Confusion is particularly common between it's (for "it is/has") and the pronoun possessive its, and sometimes similarly between you're and your. For the confusion of have or -'ve with of (as in "would of" for would have), see Weak and strong forms in English.

Contractions of the type described here should not be confused with abbreviations, such as Ltd. for "Limited (company)". Contraction-like abbreviations, such as int'l for international, are considered abbreviations as their contracted forms cannot be pronounced in speech. Abbreviations also include acronyms and initialisms.

Although there is no contraction for am not in standard English, there are certain colloquial or dialectal forms that may fill this role. These may be used in declarative sentences, whose standard form contains I am not, and in questions, with standard form am I not? In the declarative case the standard contraction I'm not is available, but this does not apply in questions, where speakers may feel the need for a negative contraction to form the analog of isn't it, aren't they, etc. (see § Contractions and inversion below).

The following are sometimes used in place of am not in the cases described above:

• The contraction ain't may stand for am not, among its other uses. For details see the next section, and the separate article on ain't.
• The word amnae for "am not" exists in Scots, and has been borrowed into Scottish English by many speakers.[19]
• The contraction amn't (formed in the regular manner of the other negative contractions, as described above) is a standard contraction of am not in some varieties, mainly Hiberno-English (Irish English) and Scottish English.[20][21] In Hiberno-English the question form (amn't I?) is used more frequently than the declarative I amn't.[19] (The standard I'm not is available as an alternative to I amn't in both Scottish English and Hiberno-English.) An example appears in Oliver St. John Gogarty's impious poem The Ballad of Japing Jesus: "If anyone thinks that I amn't divine, / He gets no free drinks when I'm making the wine". These lines are quoted in James Joyce's Ulysses,[22] which also contains other examples: "Amn't I with you? Amn't I your girl?" (spoken by Cissy Caffrey to Leopold Bloom in Chapter 15).[23]
• The contraction aren't, which in standard English represents are not, is a very common means of filling the "amn't gap" in questions: Aren't I lucky to have you around? Some twentieth-century writers described this usage as "illiterate" or awkward; today, however, it is reported to be "almost universal" among speakers of Standard English.[24] Aren't as a contraction for am not developed from one pronunciation of "an't" (which itself developed in part from "amn't"; see the etymology of "ain't" in the following section). In non-rhotic dialects, "aren't" and this pronunciation of "an't" are homophones, and the spelling "aren't I" began to replace "an't I" in the early part of the 20th century,[25] although examples of "aren't I" for "am I not" appear in the first half of the 19th century, as in "St. Martin's Day", from Holland-tide by Gerald Griffin, published in The Ant in 1827: "aren't I listening; and isn't it only the breeze that's blowing the sheets and halliards about?"

There is therefore no completely satisfactory first-person equivalent to aren't you? and isn't it? in standard English. The grammatical am I not? sounds stilted or affected, while aren't I? is grammatically dubious, and ain't I? is considered substandard.[26] Nonetheless, aren't I? is the solution adopted in practice by most speakers.

In cases of subject–auxiliary inversion, particularly in the formation of questions, the negative contractions can remain together as a unit and invert with the subject, thus acting as if they were auxiliary verbs in their own right. For example:

He is going. → Is he going? (regular affirmative question formation)

He isn't going. → Isn't he going? (negative question formation; isn't inverts with he)

One alternative is not to use the contraction, in which case only the verb inverts with the subject, while the not remains in place after it:

He is not going. → Is he not going?

Note that the form with isn't he is no longer a simple contraction of the fuller form (which must be is he not, and not *is not he).

Another alternative to contract the auxiliary with the subject, in which case inversion does not occur at all:

He's not going. → He's not going?

Some more examples:

Why haven't you washed? / Why have you not washed?

Can't you sing? / Can you not sing? (the full form cannot is redivided in case of inversion)

Where wouldn't they look for us? / Where would they not look for us?

The contracted forms of the questions are more usual in informal English. They are commonly found in tag questions. For the possibility of using aren't I (or other dialectal alternatives) in place of the uncontracted am I not, see Contractions representing am not above.

The same phenomenon sometimes occurs in the case of negative inversion:

Not only doesn't he smoke, ... / Not only does he not smoke, ...

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• Osborne, T. and T. Groß 2012. Constructions are catenae: Construction Grammar meets Dependency Grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 23, 1, 165–216.
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• Warner, Anthony R., English Auxiliaries, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993.