The Minor Parts of Speechattachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and
Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely
from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of
solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the
children added a relish to his existence.
By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son; by
his present lady, three daughters. The son, a steady, respectable young
man, was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had
been large, and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age.
By his own marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he
added to his wealth. To him, therefore, the succession to the Norland
estate was not so really important as to his sisters; for their fortune,
independent on what might arise to them from their father’s inherit-
ing that property, could be but small.auxiliary verbs.
In this section we discuss auxiliary verbs, which we mentioned in passing
in our chapter on Major Parts of Speech. Auxiliary verbs always occur with
a main verb, though the main verb may be “understood,” that is, omitted
and implied, e.g., Did John leave? He did [leave]. There are only a few aux-
iliaries in the language, but each plays several important grammatical and
semantic roles. The English auxiliaries are: be, have, and the modal verbs,
can, could; may, might; shall, should; will, would; must; and do, which has
no meaning but patterns grammatically like a modal. Be is used with a
verb in its Ving form to indicate the progressive aspect, e.g., The students
are working on their term papers. Be is also used with a past participle verb
form, Ven, to create the passive voice, e.g., This book was written by two
loony linguists. Have is used with a Ven form to create the perfect aspect,
e.g., The semester has come to an end. Do and the modals are followed by
a verb in its uninflected form, the form used to cite it in a dictionary, e.g.,
We shall overcome. We discuss the progressive and perfect aspects in our
chapter on Basic Clause Patterns.
Auxiliary verbs are optional elements in a clause, but up to four may oc-
cur together. Regardless of how many occur, they always follow this order:
modal, have, progressive be, and passive be, as you can demonstrate for your-
self by rearranging them in, She may have been being spied on by Homeland
Security agents. You should find that all other orders are ungrammatical.
The first auxiliary in a sentence is extremely important. First, it is the one