Page 51 - New Grammar with a Smile 5

Let us now study more about kinds of verbs.

Main Verbs and Helping Verbs

Read these sentences and pay attention to the highlighted words and the
underlined words.

y I can speak a little Tamil.

y He is working late today.

y They are working late today.

y You must obey your parents.

y He will work late today.

y You should stop talking.

y She may come tomorrow.

y I would like to have some coffee.

y Monika could swim when she was three.

y He will work late today.
y She has forgotten her wallet here.

y They were playing in the park.
The highlighted words and the underlined words are verbs. But the highlighted words

are helping the underlined words to complete the meaning of the sentence.
The highlighted verbs are helping verbs. The underlined verbs are main verbs.

The verbs that show the main action in a sentence are called main verbs.
The verbs that help the main verbs to complete the meaning and show the tense
of the sentence are called helping verbs.

The most common helping verbs are:

y to be: am, is, are, was, were

y to have: have, has, had

y to do: do, does, did

y modals: could, should, would, can, shall, will, may, might, must

You will learn about helping verbs to be, to have and to do in the various chapters on
tenses. You will learn about modals in Chapter 19.

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