Lexical verbs function as the main element of a verb phrase.
They can stand on their own as a predicate and define actions and states. They
have different forms signalling tense (present and past), aspect (perfect,
progressive) and voice (active and passive).
Auxiliary verbs are function words. They are added to a main
verb to help build verb phrases. Modal auxiliaries express modality -
possibility, necessity, prediction and volition (will, can, shall, may, must,
would, could, should, might). Primary verbs are both lexical and
auxiliaries. They show how the main verb is to be understood (was thinking, have thought).
Primary auxiliary verbs
DO
Do is auxiliary as well as lexical
verb (What have you been doing today?).
The auxiliary do:
1. It assists in forming the negation of all the lexical verbs in the
Present Simple and the Past Simple (I
don’t understand it. He didn’t see me.)
2. It assists in forming the question of all the lexical verbs in the Present
Simple and Past Simple (Do you understand? Did he see
you?)
The question is formed without
do if the question word is the subject of the clause with interrogative
pronouns who, what, which, how many, etc. (Who
saw you? How many people help you?) But with question words as objects, do must
be used. (Who did you see)
3. In a positive to emphasize the lexical verb (But I did tell him all.)
4. Do stands for lexical verbs in short answers (Yes, I do.) or is used to
avoid the repetition of the same verb (He
left school one year earlier than I did.) or replaces lexical verbs in tag questions (She works in a lab, doesn’t she?)
HAVE
Have is both lexical (I have a car = possession) and auxiliary
as:
1. Used in the Present Perfect and Past Perfect (He has just come. Had not known about it.)
2. Have + to + infinitive means MUST and becomes modal (I
have to go.)
3. Auxiliary do with have is used with the lexical have if it denotes
habitual or repeated actions (Do you often have headaches? But!
Have you got a headache now?) and in the
construction to have something done (She
had her hair cut.)
BE
The lexical and auxiliary verb BE is
unique among English verbs in having eight different forms (be, am, is, are,
will, been, being…).
1. In its lexical meaning (to exist) the verb be is frequently used in
there is/there are constructions 2. The construction be + present
infinitive expresses the modal meaning of necessary or possible action (Such people are to be found everywhere. =
Takoví lidé se najdou všude.) and with
the Past tense the intended action (The
conference was to have taken place in January = Měla se konat, ale nekonala se.)
3. Used as copula in subject predicates (He is a dentist. I was in the cinema.)
5. As auxiliary verb assists in forming continuous tenses and the
passive voice. (What are
you laughing at? One of the pictures was damaged.)
Modal auxiliary verbs
Modals have the same form in all
persons in both singular and plural and they have no infinite form with -to.
Infinites and other missing forms are expressed otherwise:
can – be able to may – be allowed to
must – have to, be obliged to, be forced
to, be compelled to
CAN/COULD
1. Ability (He can speak English. I never could play the
piano.)
2. Permission
(Can I try it?)
3. Possibility
(Anybody can make mistakes. We could go
to the concert.)
MAY (present tense) and MIGHT (present conditional)
1. Permission
(You may borrow my car if you like.)
2. Possibility
(The road may be blocked. We might go to
the concert.)
3. To express wishes (May he live long!)
SHALL
1. Intention of the speaker (I shan’t be long. We shall
overcome.)
2. Insistence
(You shall do as I say. He shall be
punished. You shall not kill.)
SHOULD
1. Advice, suggestion (You should do as he says.)
2. Distant possibility (If you should change your mind,
please let us know.)
3. 1st person Conditional in BrE (We should
love to go abroad if we had the chance.)
4. After certain expressions (It is
odd that you should say this to me.)
WILL
1. Willingness
(He’ll help you if you ask him.)
2. Polite requests (Will you open the window?)
3. Future tenses (I will write as soon as I can.)
4. Prediction about a present action with Future Continuous (John will still be reading his paper. John asi pořád ještě čte.)
5. Prediction about the result of a past action with Future Perfect (The guests will have arrived by now.)
WOULD
1. Polite requests (Would you excuse me?)
2. Characteristic activity in the past (Every
morning he would go for a long walk.)
3. The second conditional (He would smoke too much if I
didn’t stop him.)
4. Probability
(That would be his mother. = patrně bude)
MUST
1. Obligation
(You must be back by 10 o’clock. (In the
past: He had to be back by 10 o’clock.)
2. Prohibition
(You mustn’t come late.)
3. Logical necessity (There must be a mistake.)
Note! I must go. = I am obliged to go
and I want to go. / I have to go. = I’d rather stay here but the outer
circumstances force me to go.
OUGH TO
1. Strong advice, almost obligation (You
ought to start at once.) In AmE ought has occasionally the bare infinitive
in negative sentences and questions (You oughtn’t
smoke so much.)
Marginal modal auxiliaries
USED
Used always takes to-infinitive and occurs
only in the Past Tense to expresses a
repeated action in the past (He used
to earn a lot of money. He didn’t use/usedn't to earn so much as he does now.
Did he used to go there?)
DARE and NEED
1. As a lexical verb it means "odvážit se" and
"potřebovat" (I don't need a new one. She dared
to go there.)
2. As modal auxiliaries they are used with bare infinitive (She
needn’t rewrite it, need she? Need she rewrite it? He daren’t ask.)
The probability of the modals
High probability (It must
be raining over there. It must have rained over there.)
Low probability (It may
be raining over there. It may have rained over there.)
Very low probability (It
might be raining over there. It might have rained over there.)
High improbability (It
can’t be raining over there. It can’t have rained over there.)
No comments:
Post a Comment