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Auxiliary verb
An auxiliary verb is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it appears—for example, to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany a main verb. The main verb provides the main semantic content of the clause.[1] An example is the verb have in the sentence I have finished my dinner. Here, the main verb is finish, and the auxiliary have helps to express the perfect aspect. Some sentences contain a chain of two or more auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary verbs are also called helping verbs, helper verbs, or (verbal) auxiliaries. They may be glossed with the abbreviation AUX.
Contents
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1 Basic examples
2 Traits of auxiliary verbs across languages
3 Auxiliary verbs in English
3.1 A list of auxiliaries in English
3.2 Diagnostics for identifying auxiliary verbs in English
4 Auxiliary verbs vs. light verbs
5 Multiple auxiliaries
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References

Basic examples[edit]
Below are some sentences that contain representative auxiliary verbs from English, German, and French, with the auxiliary verb marked in bold:
a. Do you want tea? – do is an auxiliary accompanying the main verb want, used here to form a question – see do-support.
b. He has given his all. – has is an auxiliary used in expressing the perfect aspect of give.
c. Das wurde mehrmals gesagt. – wurde 'became ' is an auxiliary used to build the passive voice in German.[2]
That became many times said = 'That was said many times. '
d. Sie ist nach Hause gegangen. – ist 'is ' is an auxiliary used with movement verbs to build the perfect tense/aspect in German.[3]
She is to home gone = 'She went home/She has gone home. '
e. J 'ai vu le soleil. – ai 'have ' is an auxiliary used to build the perfect/tense aspect in French.[4]
I have seen the sun = 'I have seen the sun/I saw the sun. '
f. Nous sommes arrivés. – sommes 'are ' is an auxiliary used to build the passive

References: Allerton, D. 2006. Verbs and their Satellites. In Handbook of English Linguistics. Aarts 7 MacMahon (eds.). Blackwell. Adger, D. 2003. Core syntax. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Bresnan, J. 2001. Lexical-Functional Syntax. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Culicover, P. 2009. Natural language syntax. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Crystal, D. 1997. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, 4th edition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. Engel, U. 1994. Syntax der deutschen Sprache, 3rd edition. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. Eroms, H.-W. 2000. Syntax der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: de Gruyter. Finch, G. 2000. Linguistic terms and concepts. New York: St. Martin 's Press. Fowler 's Modern English Usage. 1996. Revised third edition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Jurafsky, M. and J. Martin. 2000. Speech and language processing. Dorling Kindersley (India): Pearson Education, Inc. Kroeger, P. 2004. Analyzing syntax: A lexical-functional approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Radford. A. 1997. Syntactic theory and the structure of English: A minimalist approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Radford, A. 2004. English syntax: An introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rowlett, P. 2007. The syntax of French. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sag, I. and T. Wasow. 1999. Syntactic theory: A formal introduction. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Tesnière, L. 1959. Éleménts de syntaxe structurale. Paris: Klincksieck. Warnant, L. 1982. Structure syntaxique du français. Librairie Droz.