 Jack112 wrote: |
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Sorry for my lack of understanding. Could you give me a few more examples as to how to distinguish between them?
| 1. I have never had more girlfriends than I have now. (Correct)
2. I have never had more girlfriends than I do now. (Is this one correct as well? How do I distinguish between a main verb and an auxiliary?) |
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Thanks |
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Hi Jack. Sorry I didn’t reply to this earlier but I’ve been away.
Don’t worry about not understanding. English grammar is not always clear-cut and neither is the teaching of it.
What you have trouble with is auxiliaries that also have a lexical form such as ‘do’ or ‘have’. In their auxiliary form they help to create tense (bar creating questions or emphasis). They are used in conjunction with lexical verbs. As you know, lexical verbs often take complements or objects, for example:
‘I have homework.’
Here ‘homework’ is the object of the verb and, obviously, as we only have one verb (‘have’) in this sentence (clause), it is, therefore, being used as a lexical verb.
‘I have needed homework.’
‘I have always needed homework’
Bar some obvious exceptions such as when the predicate is a compound, two lexical verbs don’t fit together in the same clause. (Don’t confuse this with infinitives, participles or gerunds.) In other words, ‘have’ has to be an auxiliary as it is followed by the lexical verb ‘need’ and varies its tense. ‘Homework’ is therefore the object of the verb ‘need’. ‘Have needed’ is what is traditionally known as a verb phrase, a verb consisting of more than one word. One thing which you need to see is that this does not change if we replace the lexical verb ‘need’ with a verb which has both a lexical and auxiliary form:
‘I have done my homework.’
‘I have always done my homework.’
‘I have had homework.’
‘I have always had homework.’
There is a second verb so ‘have’ is the auxiliary, ‘done’ and ‘had’ are lexical verbs and ‘homework’ their object.
A. ‘I have done more homework than I do now.’
B. ‘I have needed more homework than I need now.’
C. ‘I have had more homework than I have now.’
These three are correct. Notice the lexical verbs in the first clauses match the lexical verbs in the second: ‘done’ and ‘do’; ‘needed’ and ‘need’; ‘had’ and ‘have’. Notice also that we are only comparing the past to the present and, other than that, we are comparing the same thing, for example, the homework I have done compared with the homework I do.
1. ‘He does more homework than I do.’
2. ‘He has done more homework than I have.’
3. ‘He has done more homework than I do now.’
4. ‘He needs more homework than I need.’
5. ‘He has needed more homework than I have.’
6. ‘He has needed more homework than I need now.'
7. ‘He has more homework than I have.’
8. ‘He has had more homework than I have.’
9. ‘He has had more homework than I have now.’
All the above are correct. (If number three compares a past completed action with a single present continuing action then it makes no sense. It only makes sense if the past perfect refers to a period of time and the present simple refers to an habitual action (as with ‘A’).
Notice (above) that when we are comparing different things or people there are more grammatically correct combinations. For example, the homework he has done compared with the homework I have done:
‘He has done more homework than I have.’
This sentence is elliptical because ‘have’ cannot be a lexical verb otherwise we would be comparing the lexical forms of ‘have’ with ‘do’ (‘having’ with ‘doing’). Have, in the second clause, only makes sense as an auxiliary whose lexical verb is implied. The sentence could alternatively read:
‘He has done more homework than I have done.’
It is nonsensical to compare the homework I have done with the homework I have done and therefore the sentence ‘I have done more homework than I have now,’ is incorrect because ‘have’ (as explained in the previous example) has to be an auxiliary and therefore (1) we are comparing two identical things and two identical people with two identical tenses (2) ‘now’ is nonsensical as you can’t ‘have done’ something ‘now’.
‘He has had more homework than I have.’
In this sentence, ‘have’ in the second clause could be either an auxiliary or a lexical verb. ‘Had’, in the first clause, is a lexical verb (as explained at the beginning) and we can compare the lexical forms of ‘had’ with ‘have’ (‘having’ with ‘having’; first clause, second clause):
‘He has had more homework than I have (homework)’
‘Have’, in the second clause, also works as an auxiliary because we are comparing two different things even if they are in the same tense:
‘He has had more homework than I have (had).’
Hope that’s helped.
Jussive