AUXILIARY

AUXILIARY, auxiliaris, anything that is helping or assisting to another. See AUXILIUM. Thus we say a prince is to trust more to his own soldiers, than to auxiliary troops, etc.

Auxiliary verbs, in grammar, are such as help to form or conjugate others; that is, are prefixed to them to form or denote the mood and tense thereof. See VERB, CONJUGATION, etc. Such, in English, are, have, am, or be; in French, être and avoir; in Italian, ho and sono, etc. All the modern languages we know of make use of auxiliary verbs—The reason is, that the verbs thereof do not change their terminations or endings, as those of the Latin and Greek, to denote the different tenses or times of being, doing, or suffering; nor the different moods or manners of their signifying: So that to supply this defect, recourse is had to different auxiliary verbs. See TERMINATION, TENSE, PERSON, etc. The auxiliary am supplies the want of passives in our language. See PASSIVE.



Besides the perfect auxiliary verbs, we have several defective ones; as shall, will, may, can, and have; which by changing their own terminations, save the necessity of changing those of the verbs they are added to.—Thus, instead of ego uro, tu uris, ille urit, etc. we say, I do burn, thou dost burn, he doth burn, etc.

AUXILIARY