Auxiliary verbs carry information about the tense of the main verb, the mood, the person, the number, and other characteristics. However, without the main verb expressing the action, they are meaningless. Auxiliary verbs bring functional and grammatical information to the sentences in which they appear. They perform their functions in different ways, appearing in various positions in sentences, combining with other auxiliary verbs, and indicating different characteristics in the message. Not every verb expresses all of these characteristics simultaneously, and sometimes it is only possible to determine their grammatical meanings in a sentence.
There may be more than one auxiliary verb before the main verb in a sentence. This part of speech cannot be an independent semantic unit in a sentence; it carries only grammatical meaning but not concrete meaning. In sentences with negation, the auxiliary verb combines with the negative particle not and may be omitted in the translation. In turn, the main verb must be present in any sentence. It can be an independent semantic unit in a sentence, conveying meaning. In addition, this part of speech cannot form a negation on its own, only with the help of an auxiliary verb with the particle not.
Modal verbs usually convey more than one meaning, and their semantic zones sometimes overlap. There are four paired modal verbs: “can” – “could”; “may – might”; “will – would”; “shall – should.” The second component of the modal binomial not only has its own meaning. However, it can also be a semantic correlate of the first paradigm component to denote events, actions, states in the past, for example, in indirect speech. In addition, except for the verb “can” and sometimes the verb “will,” which respectively correlate with “could” and “would” in the temporal framework of the past tense, English modal verbs have no specific forms to verbalize the past. Moreover, for practical purposes, the second component of a modal pair is often a conceptualizer of a more polite form of expression and a prior version of the meaning of the first component.
In order to consider the importance and semantic load of verbs, it is necessary to analyze the sentence «The student should have been writing her dissertation». Looking ahead, it should be emphasized that each of the analyzed words carries its own meaning, removing which the sentence acquires a different character (Kortmann, 2020). It is worth limiting the list of words by the narrowness of the topic, therefore, the words should have been writing will be considered. It is necessary to start with three auxiliary verbs, each of which must be considered separately.
So, the word “should” first of all gives character to the action itself, indicating its obligation or voluntariness. From the use of this particular word, it becomes clear that the student has at least a choice of actions. However, the nature of the sentence becomes judgmental, indicating a mistake or disapproval of the person’s actions, but in an advising, unsharp form (Kortmann, 2020). It is important to emphasize that another meaning of the verb lies in the fact that the student did NOT do the task, accordingly, made the wrong choice (Kortmann, 2020). Thus, in this verb, there are three most important meanings at once, without which the sentence «The student have been writing her dissertation» would have a completely different meaning.
The word “have” in the context of the analyzed sentence has less meaning than the previous one, but this does not detract from its significance. The fact is that this word indicates to the reader or listener the duration of the event in the sentence (Kortmann, 2020). One of the most important points of this auxiliary verb is that it indicates the past form, emphasizes that at the moment, the choice can no longer be changed, and the consequences are irreversible. It can be concluded that without the presence of this word, all the above-mentioned details would have to be added, but the sentence, like the entire language as a whole, is extremely cumbersome. Finally, the word “been” emphasizes tense, and “writing” carries the basic meaning of the main verb.
Given the unusual nature of English auxiliary verbs, it is necessary to trace the history of their development. There has not always been a separate class of modal verbs in English that differed significantly from full-valued lexical verbs. The forms that existed in Old English originated from main verbs, which syntactically reflect the picture that exists in many modern languages. At one time, Anglo-Saxon lexical verbs were combined with negation and subjected to inversion in question sentences. Grammatically, they could complement auxiliary and modal verbs later and produce gerunds, infinitives, and participles.
Two types of verb properties should be studied to determine whether auxiliary words are verbs, namely word forms and word use. Verbs have properties such as tense, aspect, and kind; they are parts of speech that signify the state, the action of an object, or a person. A verb has an action-expressing form called an infinitive; it has the characteristics of a verb and a noun. The verb “to be” is a regular verb that has present, past, and continuous forms. In addition, verb forms such as “if I were” or “be he” are subjunctive forms. Subjunctive refers to an action that the speaker considers possible under certain circumstances. However, for example, if the verb “can” is analyzed,” then it can be concluded that it is defective in many ways because, in particular, it has no forms that show aspect (Kortmann, 2020). This verb does not have the infinitive form, although it does have the properties of tense and mode. For example, “could” is simultaneously a past tense verb and a subjunctive form of to be.
In conclusion, auxiliary verbs bring the greatest amount of meaning into speech and writing, although individually they do not perform any function. This emphasizes that the level of importance of a particular word is highly ambiguous. It is worth mentioning that we are talking about the context, however, thanks to the analysis carried out above, it can be argued that it is impossible to find a case where the auxiliary verbs are superfluous. This means that the main idea of ​​the study is that it is incorrect to divide parts of speech according to a hierarchy, even if semantic. According to the principles of hierarchical structure, the words that make up a sentence are organized into natural, semantically consistent classifications. These classifications (subsystems) within a sentence are called sentence constituents (Nordquist, 2019). The tree diagram is an effective way to show the hierarchical nature of constituents; however, it does not reflect the syntactic categories to which the constituents belong. This limitation can be corrected by labeling each constituent of the tree structure with the corresponding category token. The result of this labeling is a labeled tree structure.
Argumentation
In recent years, linguistic research has devoted considerable attention to the problem of studying the semantic structure of a word. It is connected with the fact that a word does not function in the language in isolation. Words are in various links and combinations with other lexical units. According to many scientists, the adjective is one of the most difficult to study and the least studied parts of speech in English.
In English, due to the paucity of morphological indicators, the boundaries between parts of speech become blurred. The English adjective has no form of agreement with the noun, and among relative adjectives, only a tiny proportion of words are formed with a special word-formation suffix. The adjective is distinguished primarily by its semantic and syntactic characteristics in English. The absence of morphological indicators makes it possible for a noun to be used to define the following noun. It is worth noting that it is often tricky to also distinguish a compound word from a word combination in combinations of two nouns.
When analyzing the characteristics and features of the category of the adjective name in English, linguists encounter different principles of classification and, consequently, various groups and classes of English adjectives. Attributive adjectives always come before the nouns they modify. Predicative adjectives, in turn, come after the nouns they modify. They are called predicate adjectives because they appear as a complement of the predicate. Proper adjectives resemble proper nouns, which have become adjectives (“leather shoes,” “Chemistry student”). The name of a particular person, place, or object is an example of this category of adjectives. English traditional theoretical grammars give a wide variety of classifications of the adjective name. The number of classes of adjectives ranges from three to eight. The boundaries of this category in English scientific grammar are rather vague and indefinite.
The functional interaction of the adjective with the noun is expressed in a process traditionally called adjective substantivization. Adjectives are capable of performing syntactic functions peculiar to nouns, either as subjects or as complements. Adjectives in these cases are used with a definite article and usually denote a plurality of persons. The syntactic positions peculiar to the noun are closely related to the noun in its properties. One of the criteria for classifying a word as an adjective is the ability to use them attributively and predicatively. The main functions of adjectives are those of definitive and predicative; nevertheless, not all adjectives can appear in both roles.
In English, the relationship between words and their role is expressed through their order in a sentence. Therefore, it is necessary to know the place of each component in the sentence, not to confuse them and not to change their positions, as this changes the meaning of the sentence. Adjectives often add additional information that is not absolutely essential to the meaning of a sentence. Because adjectival sentences are optional, they can often be moved or even deleted without changing the grammatical meaning of the sentence.
When people say “red hair,” each of the words used retains its own meaning. In turn, if one says “bluebells,” the word can be translated as “blue bells.” However, for those who are not native speakers of English, there are no problems with the translation of such combinations. That is because the resulting association with a flower in the shape of a bell suggests the word’s meaning. Nevertheless, if it is necessary to say that the flower is not blue but white, one cannot simply replace the word “blue” with the word “white.” The correct phrase is: “I prefer white bluebells to blue ones.” It turns out that the substitutability of the components is already robbed. This example makes it clear that there are free combinations, there are semi-independent combinations, and there are phraseological combinations, that is, stable word combinations. Therefore, the adjective function depends on to which category the combination belongs.
When several adjectives are in a definitive prepositive group, they are arranged strictly in a particular order in relation to the defined noun. In the immediate vicinity of a noun, an adjective-definition is usually located, denoting the most common and essential feature. Adjectives that denote a more detailed description within the presented species are located farther from the noun. The postposition of the adjective allows it to preserve its attributive function while acquiring a shade of predicativeness. Thus, the attribute of an objective concept is transmitted as characteristic of it and forms with it a single species concept.
Adjuncts in English are parts of a sentence that are added to a clause (a group of words containing a verb) to show additional information about the time, nature, mode of action, place, frequency, and extent of an event. Some sentence parts can convey information about how, where, and when something happened. Most adjectives are adjuncts rather than complements. This means that one can omit most adjectives or elements that function as adjectives without affecting the grammar. Indeed, some information is lost, namely the information these parts of speech provide. Usually, adjective complements are used as clauses or phrases to modify the adjective. These adjectives represent a group of nominal clauses or prepositional phrases.
Both adjectives and other speech parts may be adjuncts in collocations with an adjunct in the preposition. Heterogeneous syntactic features characterize different kinds of adjuncts. Often in analytic-type languages (to which English belongs), only the solely syntactic function of a language unit helps to position it in a certain context as an adjective. Even in the absence of morphological indicators in a given language, adjectives would still be regarded as such. This is because adjectives have a distinct grammatical meaning and perform either an attributive (“She is an ugly woman”) or a predicative (“She is ugly”) function in a sentence.
By analyzing the word “hot,” it should be noted that this word is difficult to analyze in modern language. In jargon, scientific and descriptive works, and ordinary speech, the analyzed word is used in different ways. First of all, it is worth turning to the main meaning of this adjective, which denotes an object of high temperature. Although, when applied to people, this word is used solely as a compliment. For example, the phrase “hot guy,” “hot look,” “hot atmosphere” often has either sexy or enthusiastic connotations. In addition, from the entire base of use of the word, it is impossible to find the negative color of this adjective (McMahon et al., 2020). Based on the foregoing, it can be argued that the word “hot” is purely a compliment if the non-main context is considered.
However, there is no strictly fixed correspondence along the line: parts of speech – members of a sentence. Thus, in modern English, along with an adjective, a noun in the possessive case can also act as a definition). According to many leading linguists, it is much more important to consider the criterion of so-called “combinability.” The coordination test will help to identify the difference between adjuncts and complements. The following sentences should be analyzed to explain the essence of this theory: “A tiny river / The river was tiny.” What is worth noting is that the adjective “wide” in these sentences functions differently. In the first case, it acts as a defining member with a noun (attributive function), in the second – with a verb to be (predicative function).
In attributive syntagms, the adjective acts as a defining member or attribute, naming some feature of the word being defined without regard to the categories of inflection and tense (a black table, a nice party). Thus, acting as an attribute, the adjective as a dependent, non-self part of speech is part of a larger linguistic unit – an attributive phrase (McMahon et al., 2020). In this case, the categorical-semantic essence of the adjective is leveled as the thematic emphasis changes. The adjective in the attributive combination performs a similar communicative function to that of the noun it defines. At the same time, in their attributive role, adjectives are more inclined to describe the permanent properties of objects, thus approaching and overlapping with substantive names.
In the classical approach, predicative syntagmas express the direct relation of some two members of the sentence with the obligatory presence of the tense and the inclination. In predicative use, the adjective tends to perform only the predicative function. In the case of attributive use, the denotative component of the meaning of a particular adjective becomes important (McMahon et al., 2020). However, in predicative use, the emphasis is placed on considering the object within the class characterized by the given attribute. In this regard, even though a particular adjective occupies alternately the attribute position (“This is a big apple”) and the predicate position (This apple is big). Thus, it demonstrates completely different entities semantically.
Thus, special attention should be paid to its syntactic properties when qualifying an adjective as a part of speech. The functional anchoring of adjectives is related to their ability to perform specific roles as nominal and predicate phrases. Attributive English adjectives are usually characterized by preposition and denotation of the qualities and properties of an object as a certain given, known to the speaker and the hearer. On the other hand, predicative adjectives are characterized by postposition; they aim to turn the attributes of the word being defined into the subject of the message. Moreover, attributive and predicative adjectives are also distinguished because the former denotes unchangeable properties converging to substantive names, and the latter denotes impermanent converging to verbal units.
An adjective complement is a phrase or sentence that provides the information necessary to complete the meaning of a sentence with an adjective. They are most often used with predicate adjectives, following linking verbs and describing the sentence’s subject. Because proper adjectives require the adjective to come before the noun, they cannot serve as complements. In turn, other categories of adjectives can function as complements because they are capable of shifting their position in a sentence and changing their function accordingly.
A complement is a minor sentence component that gives additional information about the subject. It can be of two types; in the first case, it supplements the subject, and in this case, the term subject complement (“She looks ill”) is used. The second type gives additional information about the complement, in which case it is called object complement (“He painted the house red”). Accordingly, in addition to their primary function as adjuncts, adjectives can also be complements. There is a theory that modals are of category T, but auxiliaries are really verbs. Such theory-internal claim is only relevant if the theory of syntax is generative syntax. If the generative syntax is not a theory to rely on then it can be concluded that modals carry tense and auxiliaries are really verbs and often used with the verbs of meaning. It can be easily proven by the fact that people cannot say things like “She will goes away.”
It is worth noting that modal and auxiliary verbs are not interchangeable parts. The only similarity they have between each other is that modal verbs and auxiliary verbs both help other verbs show meaning. The essential difference is that the former indicates the action’s time, mood, voice, and other grammatical aspects. The second type of verbs is a kind of auxiliary verbs indicating modality. Modals are a subclass of auxiliaries and all modal verbs are auxiliary, however not all auxiliary verbs are modal. Moreover, auxiliary verbs are used with other verbs and can sometimes act as full verbs. However, sometimes a modal verb can be marked as auxiliary.
References
Kortmann, B. (2020). English linguistics. Essentials. J.B. Metzler.
McMahon, A., Aarts, B. & Hinrichs, J. (Ed.). (2020). The handbook of English linguistics. Wiley.
Nordquist, R. (2019). Constituent: Definition and examples in grammar. ThoughtCo. Web.