The verb and its helpers

/.../ The total verb system of English is extraordinarily complex /.../. This fact is due to an important grammatical feature of the language: the verb position in the language /.../ can be filled not only by the simple verb but also by needed word group /verb group/. In such a verb group, a head consisting of a base /.../ of a full verb is preceded by one, or two, or a series of empty words. These, whatever their precise nature, are the verbal auxiliaries /verbal helpers/ of English, the empty words used in verb word-groups:

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he reporter was giving a lady books

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The reporter had been given a lady books

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The reporter had been about to be giving a lady books

Whatever their functions, these words, preceding the verb head constitute

special kinds of modifiers, but being empty words, not full words, they modify the head only grammatically. Their main function is to limit the functions of the verb wording to the attitudes and feelings of speakers towards the happenings they may be reporting. When a simple verb is used, it merely times a happening as past or non-past / ... /.When a verb word group is used, it indicates the particular manner in which a happening is, was, will be, or may be realized /.../.

Verb groups express the aspects of a happening by verying the verb part used as the head. Thus an “ing” -part /present participle/ marks a continuing or imperfect happening /imperfect aspect/, a past participle marks a completed or perfect happening /perfect aspect/, and a simple base marks a happening as neither of these /indefinite aspect/:

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The reporter was giving a lady books

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The reporter had given a lady books

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The reporter might give a lady books

The role of the verbal helpers is to differentiate these general aspects even further by making their detailed time settings /tenses/ and special conditions of possible occurrence /moods/. Classification of the verbal helpers depends partly upon their form and partly upon their positions as constituents of the verb word group.

The first major division consists of those verbal helpers which can assume the first position in the verb group /.../. There are two subdivisions:

a) Modals /mood auxiliaries/ are stressless “verbs that can occur immediately before a plain base and lack an “s”-part: can, could, dare, may might, must, need, shall, should, will, would. Their purpose is to signalize non-actual situations, i.e., happenings that have not taken place, according to the various attitudes /moods/ held by the person who reports them: possibility, necessity, obligation, intention, condition, capability:

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The reporter may giving the lady books

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The reporter could give the lady books

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The reporter will give the lady books

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The reporter must give the lady books

b) Timers are verbs that possess “s” -parts but cannot occur immediately before a simple base used as the head. Here certainly belong the parts of be and have /.../.