Subcategories of Verbs

Subcategories of Verbs:

Main Verb:

Expreses actions or states of being. They have all the five inflectional forms of verbs and can occur alone and independent of any other verbs.

Helping Verb:

Are used to support a man verb and do not occur by themselves in a sentence. There are two types of helping verbs: Auxiliary verbs and Modal verbs (or Modal Auxiliaries).

Helping Verbs:

Auxiliary Verbs:

There are three auxiliary verbs in English: be, do, and have.

They occur together with a main verb in sentences.

If an auxiliary verb is present then the main verb occurs in the nonfinite form of present participle, past participle, or bare infinite.

They carry no meaning on their own.

Modal Verbs (or Modal Auxiliaries):

There are nine modal verbs in English: will, would, shall, should, can, could, may, might, must, and sometimes ought.

They also occur with main verbs, but can stand by themselves.

They only have one form, you can't conjugate them.

Modal Auxiliary Verbs:

Some of their meanings:

Chuck will sell his house. (future certainty)

As a child, Irene would hide in the garden. (repeated past activity)

The toddler might hurt himself. (possibility)

The child may eat now. (possibility or permission)

I should call her. (obligation)

He can swim a mile. (ability)

They should arrive by seven. (probability)

Conditionals:

They are on the second part of a hypothetical situation with "if and then".

If you had the money, you could go to Europe.

Soften a command:

Softening commands help them seem less rude or blunt.

Could you help me?