Maybe We'll Be Verbing...Auxiliary Verbs and Gerunds!
Don’t you just love verbs! They’re like sentence chameleons—magical ones. They express actions, predict the future, hypothesize about what could have happened, and they even become nouns. Sometimes they form a posse and make a verb phrase! So many skills, so little time.
Since you can't have a complete sentence without a verb, it's helpful to understand their dexterity. Today, we're going to talk about some of the trickier ones: Auxiliary (or Helping) Verbs and Gerunds.
Contain your excitement! (I can’t!)
What is a helping verb?
The helping (or auxiliary) verbs are forms of BE, DO, and HAVE. Others (known as modal auxiliaries) are CAN, COULD, MAY, MIGHT, MUST, OUGHT TO, SHALL, SHOULD, WILL, and WOULD. Helping verbs form part of a verb phrase and express hypotheticals or conditions, rather than just simple actions.
Observe!
Mal Reynolds should have fixed his flowery bonnet before fighting the robbers.
The helping verb here is should and the verb is fixed, making the verb phrase should have fixed (have is a linking verb). It refers to the hypothetical bonnet fixing, rather than Mal’s actual action, which was to fight the robbers without fixing his bonnet.
So what can the helping verb do for me?
When an action is ongoing, hypothetical, or nuanced, we need more than just one verb.
Jayne wore the coolest hat.
The verb (to wear) in this sentence grammatically suggests that Jayne only put on the awesome hat once. It happened, then it was done. If we want to express the frequency of Jayne's hat wearing, we use a helping verb:
Jayne has been wearing the coolest hat.
Now there's an idea that Jayne wore this hat a lot, or had it on for a longer period of time. Helping verbs make verbs long-acting.
When the Verb dressed up as a Noun...
Yes, verbs can be nouns. They're chameleons! When a verb acts as a noun, we call them gerunds. Across the board, ALL gerunds end in -ing.
But...present participles also end in -ing, and are NOT gerunds. Apologies.
So, what's a present participle?
This is a conjugated form of a verb ending in -ing.
Mal is fighting. Jayne is dancing around the room. Kaylee is spinning her parasol.
To fight, to dance, and to spin are all conjugated into their present participle forms in these examples. We know they're still verbs here because they're still words of action.
What's Kaylee doing? Kaylee is spinning.
One more thing:
Present participles can also be verb-adjective hybrids.
The spinning bottle. The dancing man.
These present participles are acting as adjectives (they modify their subject), but are describing motion: The bottle is spinning. The man is dancing.
They're still expressing action, so they're still verbs. Specifically, present participle verbs.
Now for the gerunds!
Gerunds are nouns, so they're things, not actions.
Reading is fun!
I think swimming is the best exercise.
Wash was really into climbing before he became the pilot of Serenity.
Reading, swimming, and climbing are describing activities (things), not the actions. The verbs in these sentences are to be (is), to think, and to be (was) again.
To break it down one step more...
We can look at where these gerunds fall in the grammatical structure of their sentences to confirm their fancy noun status:
Reading is the subject. Ask: Who/What is fun? Reading is fun!
Swimming and climbing are direct objects. Ask: The verb did what to whom/what?
I think what is good exercise? I think swimming is good exercise.
Wash was into what? Wash was into climbing.
All three of these words (reading, swimming, and climbing) have absconded with noun positions, and have become nouns. They are indeed gerunds! Huzzah!
Grammar Bytes!: The Auxiliary Verb
Grammar Bytes!: The Verb Phrase
Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips: Modal Auxiliary Verbs
The English Club: Helping Verbs
Grammar Bytes!: The Gerund
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