[1]: 19 [2]: 11–12 Although the auxiliary verbs of English are widely believed to lack inherent semantic meaning and instead to modify the meaning of the verbs they accompany, they are nowadays classed by linguists as auxiliary on the basis not of semantic but of grammatical properties: among these, that they invert with their subjects in interrogative main clauses (Has John arrived?)
When describing English, the adjective auxiliary was "formerly applied to any formative or subordinate elements of language, e.g. prefixes, prepositions.
The first English grammar, Bref Grammar for English by William Bullokar, published in 1586, does not use the term "auxiliary" but says: All other verbs are called verbs-neuters-un-perfect because they require the infinitive mood of another verb to express their signification of meaning perfectly: and be these, may, can, might or mought, could, would, should, must, ought, and sometimes, will, that being a mere sign of the future tense.
[orthography standardized and modernized][4]: 353 In volume 5 (1762) of Tristram Shandy, the narrator's father explains that "The verbs auxiliary we are concerned in here, . . .
[9]: 92–102 The list of auxiliary verbs in Modern English, along with their inflected forms, is shown in the following table.
[18]: 10, 54–57 Each of the two most compendious of postwar reference grammars of English offers a more detailed list of criteria for auxiliary verbs.
[2]: 19 Various linguists, notably Geoff Pullum, have suggested that the to of I want to go (not the preposition to as in I went to Rome) is a special case of an auxiliary verb with no tensed forms.
[22][s] Rodney Huddleston argues against this position in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language,[9]: 1183–1187 but Robert Levine counters these arguments.
[24] In a book on the historical emergence and spread of infinitival to, Bettelou Los calls Pullum's arguments that it is an auxiliary verb "compelling".
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language observes: If we take [the had in had better] as a distinct lexeme, we will say that it has been reanalysed as a present tense form (like must and ought). . . .
[9]: 113 Expressions ranging from had better to would rather have been argued to comprise "a family of morphosyntactic configurations with a moderate degree of formal and semantic homogeneity".
[26]: 11 However, the syntactic category of plain better when used in this or a similar way is not always clear: while it may have been reanalysed as an independent modal auxiliary verb – one with no preterite form and also no ability to invert (*Better I leave now?)
[27]: 118 ) Followed by the present participle of a verb (whether lexical or auxiliary), be realizes the progressive aspect: He was promoting the film.
Ascriptive copular be ascribes a property to the subject (The car was a wreck); specifying copular be identifies the subject (The woman in the green shoes is my aunt Louise) and can be reversed with a grammatical result (My aunt Louise is the woman in the green shoes).
The latter pattern persisted into the 19th century: a character in Pride and Prejudice says, But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it will be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying.
It also differs from (iii) I RUN five kilometres every morning (with the stress on run): A context for (i), with its "emphasis on positive polarity", would be an allegation that the speaker didn't do so every morning; for (iii), with its "emphasis on lexical content", an allegation that the speaker merely walked.
[9]: 140–141 A full description of their uses is necessarily complex: the discussion in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is long and intricate.
[9]: 111–112 [34]: 54 An alternative to auxiliary verb have in this sense is have got, although this is commoner among British speakers, and less formal[9]: 111–113 (Has he got old news for you;[41] It hasn’t got anything to do with the little green men and the blue orb;[42] What right had he got to get on this train without a ticket?
Use /jus/ (rhyming with loose) satisfies only one of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language's five criteria for modal as distinct from other auxiliary verbs.
After noting how constructions employing used (We used to play tennis every week), would (We would play tennis every week), and the preterite alone (We played tennis every week) often seem to be interchangeable, Robert I. Binnick teases them apart, concluding that used is an "anti-present-perfect": whereas the present perfect "includes the present in what is essentially a period of the past", the used construction "precisely excludes [it]"; and further that The whole point of the used to construction is not to report a habit in the past but rather to contrast a past era with the present.
For more details on the uses of auxiliaries to express aspect, mood and time reference, see English clause syntax.
If we put aside the highly anomalous to, the order is then modal > perfect have > progressive be > passive be, and a lexical verb.
[51] They usually involve the elision of a vowel – an apostrophe being inserted in its place in written English – possibly accompanied by other changes.
[citation needed] Contractions in English are generally not mandatory, as they are in some other languages, although in speech uncontracted forms may seem overly formal.
During the early 17th century, not lost its requirement for stress, and subsequently came to be written as ‑n't, particularly in comedies and in the mouths of rustic characters or others speaking nonstandard dialects.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of ‑n't in writing spread beyond drama and fiction to personal letters, journalism, and descriptive texts.
[53]: 176, 189 There were various other negative contractions that have not survived: as examples, Barron Brainerd cites A. C. Partridge as showing that from 1599 to 1632 Ben Jonson used i'not ("is not"), sha'not ("shall not"), wi'not ("will not"), wu'not and wou'not ("would not"), ha'not ("has/have not"), and do'not ("do not").
An example appears in a poem by Oliver St. John Gogarty: If anyone thinks that I amn't divine, / He gets no free drinks when I'm making the wine.
[62] Geoffrey Nunberg has argued that ain't is used by Standard English speakers "to suggest that a fact is just obvious on the face of things".
Bain't, apparently from "be not", is found in a number of works employing eye dialect, including J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas.