Auxiliary Verb Exercises

Auxiliary Verb Exercises

A. Explain what is wrong with each of the following sentences. (In Linguistics, a star – * – means that the sentence is ungrammatical, that you can’t say that in English.)

1. *He must went to the store.

2. *John is having written a letter.

3. *We have must go to the store.

4. *John has writing a letter.

5. *Has John will written a letter?

B. Make “Yes-No” Questions out of these declarative sentences.

1. John will write a letter

2. John had written a letter

3. John may have been writing a letter

4. John writes a letter every day

C. Add a Tag Question to the end of these sentences.

1. John will write a letter.

2. Joanne hasn’t left a message.

3. They swim every day.

D. Turn each of these Echo Questions into normal “Wh”-Questions.

1. John will write what?

2. You saw who on the corner?

3. You will meet John where?

E. Explain what is wrong with each of the following sentences.

1. *Go you to church every week?

2. *You don’t like sardines, don’t you?

3. *What you will eat for dinner?

4. *There is a restaurant [where can you eat for only three dollars]

Answers to Selected Exercises

1. *He must went to the store.
The main verb, “go” has Past Tense attached to it, making it “went”. But then the Modal comes before the Tense, violating the Auxiliary Order in English.

2. *John is having written a letter.
“Be-ing” comes before “Have-en,” violating the Auxiliary Order in English

1. John will write a letter
“Will John write a letter?”

4. John writes a letter every day
“Does John write a letter every day?”
(Note: because this sentence had only Tense, without any other Auxiliaries, we also had to use “Do” Support.)

1. John will write a letter.
“John will write a letter, won’t he?”

1. John will write what?
“What will John write?”

1. *Go you to church every week?
This is a bad application of the “Yes-No” Question Rule. This sentence started out like like this:

You go to church every week.

But then the main verb, “go,” was moved to the front of the sentence. English does not allow us to move the main verb to the front of the sentence (though other languages, like French, allow it).

Instead, to make a “Yes-No” Question, we must move the Tense, and the first Auxiliary after Tense (if any) to the front of the sentence. In this sentence we have only Tense in Auxiliary position.

You go to church every week.
You present+go to church every week.

So we move just Tense to the front of the sentence:

Present you ___ go to church every week.

But since Tense is all alone, we must add “do”:

Present+do you ____ go to church every week
“Do you go to church every week?”

3. *What you will eat for dinner?
This sentence started out like this:

You will eat what for dinner

To make a proper “Wh”-Question, we must

(i) Use the “Yes-No” Question Rule, and
(ii) Move the “Wh”-phrase to the front of the sentence

However, in sentence (3), Step (i) was left out. The proper form of question (3) should go like this:

“You will eat what for dinner”
You present+will eat what for dinner
present+will you ____ eat what for dinner (“Yes-No” Question Rule)
What present+will you ____ eat _____ for dinner (“Wh”-Movement)
“What will you eat for dinner?”