Chapter 5 - Verb Phrases3.1 The auxiliary as a dummy
One very interesting fact about aspectual auxiliaries is that each auxiliary is
accompanied by a specific morpheme which is always realised on the verbal element
which follows the auxiliary:
(156) a has seen the light
b has been seeing the light
c is seeing the light
d is being seen
The fist two examples in (156) show that the auxiliary have is always followed by a
verbal element in the ‘en’ form (though there is irregularity here and the morpheme is
not always represented like this – see chapter 1). This element may be a main verb, as
in (156a) or the auxiliary be as in (156b). The auxiliary be is followed by a verbal
element in its ‘ing’ form and again this can either be a main verb (156c) or another
auxiliary, as in (156d), where we have the passive auxiliary be. We have already seen
that the passive morpheme is another instance of en. This attaches only to main verbs,
a fact which follows from the analysis given above where the morpheme was treated
as a light verb immediately above the thematic VP to which the main verb will move.
What is the nature of the two parts of each aspectual elements, the auxiliary and its
associated morpheme? A classic analysis dating back to Chomsky (1957) is that the
auxiliary and its morpheme are inserted into a structure as one element and then the
morpheme is ‘hopped’ backwards onto the following verbal element:
(157) a have+en see = has seen
b be+ing see = be seeing
c have+en be+ing see = have been seeing
However some of the details of this analysis were never fully worked out. What is
the lexical status of the auxiliary plus morpheme element, for example? If it is to be
considered a single lexical item, how is it possible that a syntactic rule can break it
apart? But if it is not a single element, what is the relationship between the two parts
and how do we ensure that they are always inserted into a structure together?
A related issue concerns the meaning that aspectual elements bring to the sentence.
Of the two elements, which is the meaningful one? There are at least three
possibilities. Perhaps the most intuitive one is that the aspectual meaning is
contributed by the auxiliary and the morpheme has no semantic input. However, it is
possible that the meaning contribution is made by the morpheme and the auxiliary is
meaningless, or that both elements have a contribution to make. One relevant
observation is that the use of meaningless auxiliaries is not unheard of in English. The
classic example is the auxiliary do which seems to have a variety of uses, mainly to do
with providing an element to fulfil a purpose that the main verb is not suited for. For
example: