Auxiliaries

• Examples: may, can, will, shall, might, could
• English auxiliaries differ from verbs in that they show the following properties, the NICE properties:

Negation:

A finite auxiliary precedes the negation particle not to negate a sentence.

1. Pat will not walk home.
2. *Pat walked not home.

Inversion:

A finite auxiliary stands at the beginning of a sentence in yes/no-questions.

1. Will Pat walk home?
2. *Walked Pat home?

Contraction:

There is an idiosyncratic contraction form of the auxiliary and the negation particle. won't, can't

Ellipsis:

An auxiliary can occur in VP ellipsis, i.e. at the end of a sentence when a VP is missing.

1. Pat should walk home and Mary might, too.
2. *Pat walked home and Mary walked, too.

Special cases

• Modal auxiliaries: they only have tensed forms and take no -s in the third person singular present tense
• The infinitive marker to shows many properties of auxiliaries, and is considered an auxiliary in many theories of grammar.

  ← Determiners           ↑ Words             Conjunctions →