By Tenses, Auxiliaries

The auxiliary verb carries the tense. did shows the past. (Otherwise it would be do or does.) You can't indicate tense twice in the same clause. (*What did I said?) The main verb shows the past tense ONLY when no auxiliary verb is present to do the job! (I said so.) CJ

No. The verb to be may be used as an auxiliary. Then have you been needs to be followed by a verb in the past participle form.Have you been seen? / Have you been cheated? / Have you been heard? / Have you been paid?But the verb to be can also be used as the main verb. Then have you...

If we follow Swann, we can use need as a modal verb in an affirmative sentence when a 'non-affirmative' word (such as only, hardly, seldom etc.) gives the sentence a negative kind of meaning. Look at Swann's last example: the sentence becomes incorrect when only is removed.That said,...

Here are my opinions. Two different should's are possible: the should of expectation should-exp the should of advice should-adv should-adv is much more common than should-exp.should-exp expresses an evaluation of the situation with regard to what is possible, probable, plausible, or...

I think the best way to explain this is telling your friend that in English you use only one verbal element to indicate the tense. In this sentence the auxiliary "did" is indicating the past tense so you should keep the verb in the infinitive. Otherwise it will be redundant. I hope...

Hi, I would appreciate any help to explain in grammatical terms why the following sentence doesn't work: * I didn't talked to Simon on Sunday. Is it because a past simple verb cannot follow another past tense? It is obviously incorrect, but I'm not sure how to explain this to my...

By "true" I think you mean "correct"? True is the opposite of false, but doesn't apply to grammar. Only you can tell if your cell phone has no power, which would make the statement true. As far as correct goes, you could say "My cellphone has no power...

Recently, I've heard this sort of theory so I'm gonna share this with you and want to hear your opinions as well. It's about categorizing the language into "Objective or Subjective (not she, her ..)" depending on the meaning. 1. Objective meaning : do (perfect tense...

Do existed in Old English more than a thousand years ago as a regular verb and meant to cause. It is impossible to say who introduced it to English. It's use as an auxiliary in questions and negations was established in Shakespeare's day when it was correct to say bothI know not himandI...

In that respect, I would like to know when and how the auxiliary "do" appeared in English. What kind of people introduced it into the English language? I would like to know who decided about the value of tenses of the Past. They do not correspond to the value of the tenses of the Past in...