Chapter 8
Adverbials, Auxiliaries, and Sentence Types
Exercise 8.3Aux
Give the relevant expansion of Aux for each of the following sentences. Use tree diagrams. Then describe the verb group.
Having younger brothers has been a positive experience for her two older sons. (coca:mag)
I was being unrealistic. (coca:mag)
I have been having a good deal of difficulty getting into my trousers lately. (coca:mag)
I should have been eating enough protein. (coca:mag)
You will be paying off this debt over 30 years. (coca:mag)
You could have been playing college football. (coca:mag)
I might have overlooked it, too. (coca:mag)
You must be earning a certain minimum amount. (coca:mag)
The competition should have been postponed. (coca:mag)
A traveling edition of the exhibition is being arranged by WARP. (coca:mag)
Example: She had been visiting her sister Pearl's family in San Jose, California. (coca:mag)
Answer: past perfect progressive of visit
In the following passage, identify one example of each of the auxiliary phrases listed below:
This book is about human language. Unlike most books with “language” in the title, it will not chide you about proper usage … For I will be writing not about the English language or any other language, but about something much more basic: the instinct to learn, speak, and understand language. For the first time in history there is something to write about it. Some thirty-five years ago a new science was born. Now called “cognitive science” … the science of language, in particular, has seen spectacular advances in the years since. There are many phenomena of language that we are coming to understand nearly as well as we understand how a camera works or what the spleen is for. (From Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct)
present modal progressive
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present perfect
_______________________________________
past passive
_______________________________________
present progressive
_______________________________________
Using the verb sing, provide the following verb phrases:
present modal passive
_____________________________________
past modal progressive
_____________________________________
past modal perfect
_____________________________________
present progressive passive
_____________________________________
present perfect of be
past progressive of be
present perfect progressive of have
present modal perfect progressive of eat
present modal progressive of pay
past modal perfect progressive of play
past modal perfect of overlook
(past) modal progressive of earn
past modal perfect passive of postpone
present progressive passive of arrange
will be writing
has seen
was born
are coming
{will, can, may, shall} be sung
{would, could, might, should} be singing
{has, have} sung
{am, is, are} being sung