Chapter#6

More on verbs Auxiliary VPs

Presented by: Presented to:

Memoona Manzoor Dr. Urooj Alvi
Afia Zeb
Aqsa Shahid
Rahat Naseem
Adeela Tabassum
Mafia Mukhtar
 Chapter#6
More on verbs Auxiliary VPs
• This chapter is divided into two parts.
• Part I: Lexical and auxiliary verbs It explains various forms
and the ordering of lexical and auxiliary verbs. And describes
how auxiliary verbs figure in the structure of VP.
• Part II: Constructions that depend on auxiliary verbs. It
describes three constructions that crucially involve auxiliary
verbs: passive sentences, negative sentences, and questions.
 Part I: Lexical and auxiliary verbs
• Every VP includes a lexical verb and it may contain one or
more auxiliary verbs.
• Here’s the list of auxiliary verbs: be, have, do, can/could,
will/ would, shall/should, may/might, must, and need.
• Be, have and do are sometimes called primary auxiliaries.
 EXAMPLE

• “Max can/could write nothing.”

• “Daisy is/was filling the pool.”

 Tense and Time
The contrast between lexical
and auxiliary verbs
 TENSE AND TIME:
• Verb forms that are tensed are traditionally called finite verb forms.
• All other not tensed verb forms are non-finite verb forms.
• Every sentence must contain a finite verb.
• Lexical verb is tensed in the absence of any auxiliary.
• For Example:
Peter prefers coffee to tea.
 types of lexical verbs

• Regular lexical verbs

• Irregular lexical verbs
 Regular lexical verbs
• The Regular lexical verb are the verbs in which its present tense form
consists of the basic stem, V itself, plus the present tense inflection -s, and
its past tense form consists of the stem plus the past tense inflection -ed.
• Present tense; V+ inflection –s
• Past tense; V+ inflection -ed
• For example:
fill-fills-filled
 Irregular lexical verbs

• There are many irregular lexical verbs in English.

• The more common verbs are irregular.
• For example, the word ‘write’ has the irregular past tense ‘wrote’.
• Other lexical verbs with an irregular past tense are give (gave),
forbid (forbade), see (saw), go (went), leave (left), and meet (met).
 Irregular lexical verbs
• And there are lexical verbs which are irregular in a way that
when they are interpreted as being in the past tense, their past
tense form is not distinct from their bare stem form (V). For
example put, bet, read, and hit.
• He puts it in his ear. (present)
• He put it in his ear. (past)
• if we replace Put with a regular verb such as place, and don’t
change the meaning of the sentence in any other way, we would
replace it with placed, an overtly past tense form (He placed it
in his ear).
• Although it’s irregular for a lexical verb not to change its form
in the past tense.
• while it is perfectly regular for verbs not to change from their
stem form in the present tense.
 subject–verb agreement

• This change of form in the finite verb (tensed) according to the number and person of the
subject NP is called subject–verb agreement.
• English verbs display obvious subject–verb agreement only in the present tense and then only
with a third-person singular subject.
• English has just two tenses; Present and Past. You may be wondering about the future. Future
time is expressible in a variety of ways. For example, by means of the auxiliary (modal) verb
‘will’, as in ‘He will go’ but there is no future tense as such.
• It’s important to recognise that there is no simple correlation between the grammatical category
tense and the notion of time. For example, in the right circumstances, both present tense and
past tense are compatible with the expression of future time, as shown below;
• The boat leaves at ten tonight. (Present tense – future time)
• If he gave me the bleach tomorrow, I’d use it. (Past tense – future time)
• Furthermore, ‘will’ is capable of expressing ideas other than
future time.
• ‘He will keep pestering me!’
• Here ‘will’ is used for expressing the way of saying that he is
always doing it.
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN LEXICAL
AND AUXILIARY VERBS
• The two most important differences between lexical and auxiliary verbs are:
• In questions, auxiliary verbs can move in front of the subject NP. A lexical verb cannot.
• The negative particle (not or n’t) can attach to an auxiliary verb but never to a lexical verb.
• To make these differences evident let us compare the auxiliary verbs ‘can’ with the lexical
verbs ‘speak’.
• He can go. Vs. He spoke.
• Can he go? Vs. *Spoke he?
• He cannot/can’t go. Vs. He spoke not (*spoken’t).
 The verb ‘need’
• The verb ‘need’ is listed among the modal auxiliary verbs. In fact, there
are two verbs ‘need’. One an auxiliary, the other lexical with a subtle
difference in meaning:
• lexical; He doesn’t need to go a drink.
• While as an auxiliary; He needn’t go.
• As indicated, the lexical verb can take a direct object NP – a drink – so it’s
transitive.
 infinitive particle
• The point is, following the lexical verb ‘need’ but not auxiliary ‘need’, the
following verb is introduced by to. This is the infinitive particle.
• When a verb follows a lexical verb, it can be introduced by the infinitive
particle ‘to’
• But not when it follows an auxiliary verb.
• For example, ‘hope’ and ‘forget’ are lexical verbs and when they are followed
by another verb, that other verb is lexical and is introduced by to: He hopes to
pass but he forgot to study.
 Modal Auxiliary Verb
• Modal auxiliary verbs are used to show a necessity, capability, willingness,
or possibility. Unlike most verbs, there is only one form of these verbs.
• modal verbs are always tensed (finite). They do not have un-tensed (non-
finite) forms
Present modal verbs: can, will shall may

Past modal verbs: could would should might

• will is present tense, since it usually has a future-time meaning
• The point is that will in the present tense provides one way of referring to
what is (at the present) a future point in time. In the past tense (would), it
provides a way of referring what was (in the past) a future point in time
• Examples:
• 1) (Present): He says he will come.
• 2) (Past): He said he would come
 Modal Verbs Need and Must

• must and need don’t even have a past tense form but just the one (present
tense) form already given.
• in contrast to auxiliary need, lexical need does have a past tense form. He
needed to go (preceding the infinitive particle to) and He needed a drink
(taking an NP complement) are fine
• that they never show subject-verb agreement
• They don’t change their form in the present tense, not even with a third
person singular subject NP. There is not any addition of‘s’ or ‘es’ with
the third person singular
• Example:
• She can go not she cans go.
• Ali can go not Ali cans go.
 Perfect Auxiliary Verbs

• Present perfect auxiliary has have

Past auxiliary verb
Had
•  We have/had written nothing.
• She has/had written nothing.
• Perfect have in the present tense allows us to refer to a present state of
affairs resulting from a past event, as in He has gone.
• Contrast this with He went (simple past tense) which refers just to a past
event
• Past tense form and present perfect form is identical
• Put put (have) put
• Fill filled (have) filled regular
• Present and past form are different.
• Example:
• Forbid forbade (have) forbidden
• Give gave (have) given
• Go went (have) gone irregular
 Progressive auxiliaries
• Progressive “b” is one of the kinds of auxiliary.
• “Be” is an auxiliary when it is followed by a main verb
• For example:
• “Jhon is sleeping”
• When “be” is not followed by a main then it is itself the main verb.
• For example:
• “I am a student”
 Forms of auxiliary “be” are listed below.
For example:v “Am, Is, Are, Were, Be, Been “Am, Is, Are, Were, Be, Been

The tensed verbs are forms of the progressive auxiliary “be”.

• Progressive “be” demands that the following verb has the (non-finite)
“ING” form. These are called progressive participle.
• For example:
• “Daisy is/was filling the pool”
• “Max is/was writing nothing
 “Be” can function either as an auxiliary or as a lexical verb.
Lexical “be” is the intensive verb.
For example
“Kubla Khan was very extravagant”

• “Be” also figures twice. In below example “is” is the present tense
form of progressive be, and being is the progressive participle of
the copula.
For example:
“Nanny is being a nuisance again”
• Following are the example of three kinds of auxiliary
• For example:
• “You may be wondering about the future. (MOD + PROG)”
• “Millie has been using the bleach. (PERF + PROG)”
• “Bill might have been teasing you. (MOD + PERF + PROG)”
• The ordering of the verbs is absolutely fixed.
“MOD before PERF before PROG before Lexical V”
 Passive Auxiliary be
• All the above examples discussed so far are said to be in the
active voice.
• Sentences that include the passive auxiliary verb “be” are said
to be in the passive voice.
For example:
“The pool is/was filled”
“Nothing is/was written”
• The choice of passive “be” affects the form of the sentence as a whole if the above
sentences are compared it with following example:
“Daisy is/was filling the pool”
“Max is/was writing nothing”

• The difference between progressive and passive participle forms.

“Progressive “be” adopts a verb participle form (V-ing – e.g. stealing)”

“Passive be, a verb adopts the passive participle form (e.g. stolen)”
• PASS “be” can co-occur with any combination of other auxiliaries:
For example:
“Your water pistol will be confiscated. (MOD + PASS)”
“The pool has been filled by Daisy. (PERF + PASS)”
“Otto is being driven mad by all the noise. (PROG + PASS)”
“It should have been written by now. (MOD + PERF + PASS)”
“It may be being written right now. (MOD + PROG + PASS)”
“It could have been being written. (MOD + PERF + PROG + PASS)”
• The ordering of the verbs is absolutely fixed.
“MOD before PERF before PROG before PASS before Lexical V”
Where auxiliary fit in the VP
structure
Auxiliary VPs and Adverbials
 Where auxiliary fit in the VP structure
• An auxiliary verb is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it
appears,.
• Auxiliary verbs usually accompany a main verb and the main verb provides the main semantic
content of the clause.
• Auxiliary verbs are also called helping verbs. Auxiliary verbs always go before the main verb
while in the questions the auxiliary verbs come before the subject whereas the main verb comes
after the subject.
• Examples: In the following examples, I’ve bracketed the VP
[1] Peter will VP [study the menu]
[2] Peter has VP[studied the menu].
[3] Peter is VP [studying the menu].

• What [1], [3] show is that auxiliary verbs are necessarily followed by VPs. In fact, auxiliaries are
verbs that take VP complements they demand a following VP.
I thought sister of VP and daughter of VP was for adverbials. Well, sister of VP and daughter of VP is
indeed the sign of a constituent functioning as an adverbial but not if that constituent is an auxiliary
verb (i.e. MOD, PERF, and PROG).
• So, each auxiliary verb is the head of its VP and takes a VP complement.
This applies when we have more than one auxiliary.
 Auxiliary VPs and Adverbials

• In linguistics, verb phrase is a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and its
dependents, objects, components and other modifiers but not always including the
subject.
• Verb phrases are generally divided into two types: finite verbs and nonfinite verbs.
Phrase structure grammars acknowledges both types.
• Auxiliary VP is the verb that has both the main verb and helping verb. On the other
side, adverbials are words that we use to give more information about a verb. They
can be one word (angrily, here) or phrases (in a few hours etc.) and often say how,
where, when or how often something happens or is done.
• A favored position for adverbials is the position following the first
auxiliary, as in [That hippo could easily have killed me!].
• In [Bill might just have been teasing you], the adverbial precedes the
lexical verb, following two auxiliaries. If an adverbial precedes a verb,
assume it modifies the following VP.
 Construction that
Depends on Auxiliaries
Passive Sentences
Negative Sentences
and Auxiliary do
 Passive Sentences and Active
Sentences

• The boss fired Max

• Max was fired (by the boss)
Passive Sentences and Active Sentences
Rules
 Rule I
• The object in an active sentence becomes the subject of
corresponding PASSIVE sentence
• The boss fired Max
• Max was fired (by the boss)
 What about the subject of an
active sentence when the sentence is
passivised

?
 We can do
by means of Can be indicated
a by the brackets
prepositional
( )
phrase
PP

It functions as
adverbial
phrase

It modifies
lexical VP
 Rule II
• Converting an active sentence into its passive
counterpart involves shifting the OBJECT into
subject position, it follows that only lexical verbs
that TAKE OBJECTS (direct or indirect) can
figure in passive sentence
Continue…..
 Examples

• Mrs Golightly forgave the lodger

• The bouncer is ejecting the intruder

• The lodger was forgiven ( by Mrs Golightly)

• The intruder is being ejected ( by the bouncer)
 Rule III
• Only objects shift to SUBJECT position in passive sentences
 Rule IV
• The direct object position required by a transitive
verb won’t be filled in the passive
• Example
• Everyone present saw a doctor ( transitive )
• A doctor was seen by everyone present (passive)
 Rule V

• In passive sentences, a GAP is

created in object position left by
the movement of the object to
the subject position
• GAP is represented with a
conspicuous blob .
 Rule VI
• With ditransitive verb, it is always the first
object that becomes subject in the passive
Negative Sentences and Auxiliary do

The negative Negative particle

particle NOT is can actually
placed immediately CONTRACT onto
after tensed that auxiliary
auxiliary
Crucial reference to the TENSED
AUXILIARY

What if there s no auxiliary BUT lexical

verb?
 Auxiliary Do
• Auxiliary do is quite empty of meaning
• Its function is to carry tense and negation instead of the
lexical verb
• Auxiliary do can also be used for EMPHASIS in positive
sentences
• Like have, be and do can also function as an auxiliary
verb and as a transitive lexical verb as;
• They did not do the exercise
Questions fronting the
tensed auxiliary
More on have and be
Questions fronting the tensed auxiliary

• The tensed auxiliary moves in front of the

subject.
• Structural position in t phrase marker should
able to accept the fronted auxiliary.
 The question is

• What structural position does the tensed auxiliary

move to?
• There are two nodes
• S node ( S’ bar )
• C node ( Complenstiser)
• A fronted auxiliary moves to is the complemtiser position.
• Lexical verbs never move in front of the subject.
 Absence of auxiliary

• Auxiliary “do” is required to carry the tense in the absence of any

auxiliary.
 More on have and be
• Both functioning as auxiliary verbs and lexical verbs.
• They are in fronting to C in questions.
• Do is ungrammatical with the auxiliary use of have and be.
• ‘’Be’’ always behaves like an auxiliary whether functioning
as auxiliary or lexical.