Auxiliary Verbs

Find the complete verb of each sentence and write it in the white window.

The "Other" Verbs

Since the verb is the structural core of every sentence, verbs that carry much of a writer's meaning make prose efficient and emphatic. This is why you are asked to recognize verbs. Furthermore, verbs express information about time and other issues such as habitual action, continuing action, obligation, ability, and possibility. The English verb system employs many helper verbs, called auxiliaries, to add to our sentences these "colors" or "flavors" as well as fine discriminations of time.

This lesson asks you to learn to recognize the following auxiliary verbs:

    have (has/had/having)
    be (am/is/are/was/were/being/been)
    do (did/done/doing)

The modal verbs are a sub-group of auxiliaries:

    shall/should
    will/would
    can/could
    may/might

And then there is a miscellaneous assortment of auxiliaries that end in to so as to connect with the infinitive form of verbs to express many of the same ideas other auxiliaries express, for English is characterized by astonishing redundancy and variety.

    have/has to
    ought to
    used to
    am/is/are/was/were supposed to
    am to/is to/etc.
    am . . . going to

Sausage sales at the fair should exceed last year's by a large margin.

The complete verb is .