1.3: Helping Verbs

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Don Bissonnette
South Seattle Community College

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Helping Verbs

Helping Verbs are extremely important when studying the grammar of English Verb Tenses (of which there are 12). Helping Verbs are used in English for the following purposes:

1. Showing Verb Tenses
2. Making Verbs Negative
3. Making Questions
4. With the Modal Verbs, Changing the Meaning of the Main Verb
5. Changing Voice (Active Voice to Passive Voice)

Below are the 19 helping verbs in English.

To Be                                  These helping verbs are used to make the negative and the question
am, is, are                              forms in the simple present and past tenses as well as the
was, were                              continuous tenses.

Negative Form Question Form

am not is not are not Am I? Is he Are we?
was not were not Was he? Were they?

Examples:

I am a man. I am not a woman. Were the students at school? No, they weren’t at school.

They are playing baseball? Are they playing football? No, they aren’t playing football.

She was driving to the market. Was she driving to the post office? No, she wasn’t.

Modal Verbs

can, could, will, would may, might, should, must, (shall)

Negative Form Question Form

can not (can't), could not, will not (won't),                  Can I?      Would you?
    would not, may not, might not,                                    May she?      Must it?
should not, must not, (shall not)                              (Shall we?)      Would he?

Can they speak Vietnamese? No, they cannot. Could he do it? No, he could not do it.

We must do our homework. Should students come to class on time? Yes, they should. They should not come late.

Will you cook dinner tonight? No, I won’t cook dinner tonight.

The man might have gotten into an accident. He would have called if he had.

To Do With verbs in the present and past tenses, the verb to do is used for the
do, does, negative and the question forms.
did

Negative Form Question Form

do not, does not Do they? Does he?

did not Did you?

We eat lunch. Do we eat lunch? No, we do not eat lunch.

She goes to class. Does she go to class? No, she does not go to class.

They played football. Did they play football? No, they did not play football.

To Have                Have has two very different uses in English. When have is used
have, has,             alone, it means to own or to possess something. For example, I have a
had                       car. You have a teacher. He has a girlfriend. However, when have is used with
                             the perfect tenses in English, it is a helping verb whose purpose is only to signify
                             the perfect tenses. As a helping verb, the negative and question forms
                             are made with the verb have.

Negative Form Question Form

have not, has not Have you? Has she?
had not Had we?

I have eaten dinner. Have you eaten dinner yet? No, I have not eaten dinner.

It has rained a lot. Has it rained this evening? No, it has not rained this evening.

We had done all of our work by the time we left for home. Had we left any work for the next day? No, we had not left any.

She has come to class every day this quarter. Has she been late? No, she hasn’t been late at all.

Helping verbs basically control almost all of the verb formations in English. If you learn and understand helping verbs, you will learn and understand English grammar much more easily.