Helping Verbs

Helping Verbs

Sometimes, like people, verbs need help. Helping verbs have no meaning on their own in the sentence but help clarify and explain the main verb. There are two categories of helping verbs: primary and modal. Primary, also called auxillary verbs, help the reader to understand what tense the main verb is, while modal helping verbs modify the meaning of the main verb and show necessity or possibility.

The primary helping verbs are made up of the forms from the verbs to be (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been)to have (have, has, had) and to do (do, does, did) Shall, will, should, would, may, might, can could)

I had studied for three long hours before I remembered that there wasn’t a test over that chapter.

·         Had studied is the entire verb phrase

·         Had, a primary helping verb, delineates for the reader the past perfect tense of the verb study.

I could not study at all today.

·         Could study is the entire verb phrase

·         Could shows possibility of studying, making it a modal helping verb.