On the Universality of Auxiliary Verbs

Abstract

Cross-linguistically, it has often been observed that there is no any specific language-independent formal definition that can be used to determine the characterization of any given element as an auxiliary verb. This paper, though it agrees to some extent with this observation, argues that there is still room to find some universal properties that help us end up with the conclusion that auxiliaries and lexical verbs are two distinct types of syntactic entities. To this end, this paper describes the characteristics * I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Qassim University for supporting this work. Here I would like to extend my sincerest thanks and appreciation to the University's Rector Prof. Khalid Al-Humodi, and his Vice-Rectorate for Graduate Studies & Research: Prof. Abdulrahman Al-Wasel for having created the "right environment" for scientific research in Qassim University. Also, I extend my thanks to Anders Holmberg, Abdelkader Fassi Fehri, Jeffrey Pool, and Maggie Tallerman for insightful comments, suggestions, and discussions on an early version of this paper. I am grateful to Mohammad Al-Moaily for his invaluable help during all phases of this work. Special thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers and editors for clarifying my ideas and for significant editorial improvements which I tried to put to use here. I am solely responsible for any mistakes or inadequacy.

Investigating EFL Libyan students problems in translating English Auxiliary verbs in declarative Sentences, Case study: English Department Alasmarya University

“…Arabic auxiliaries are either auxiliary verbs called in Arabic (Alnaquib, 2014) and ‫كان‬ ‫‪is‬أمسى.‬ the most frequently used one. Like English primary auxiliary verbs, verbs ‫كان‬ and ‫ليس‬ can be used as main verbs in sentences (Al-Horais, 2012). Verbs of beginning express actions that have already begun.…”

“…); for example, ‫رسالة‬ ‫تكتب‬ ‫,كانت‬ the auxiliary verb ‫كانت‬holds information of gender which is feminine and tense which is imperfect with the affix ‫ت‬ (taa). ( Al-Horais, 2012 andAlnaquib, 2014).…”

“…Auxiliary verbs are verbs which are used to help other verbs, so they are frequently called helping verbs. Actually, there is no formal definition that is used universally to define auxiliary verbs in all languages because of the different properties among auxiliaries in those languages (Al-Horais, 2012). Auxiliary verbs may have functional or grammatical meanings in sentences in which they appear.…”