Comment
Bazza
Think of the verb ‘to have’: to own, to possess.
“He has a Honda, and I have a Mazda.”
Yet here it is, being used as an auxiliary verb to form the Present Perfect, Past Perfect, and Future Perfect:
“I have had my car for five years.”
“I bought a new car because I had had my old car for five years.”
“In a few months, I will have worked here for ten years.”
Think of the verbs ‘to hit’ and ‘to read’. Both are MAIN verbs, yet:
‘hit’ and ‘read’ are the Present Tense, Past Tense, the Present Perfect and Past Perfect, and Future Perfect:
“Now, hit the ball with the cricket bat and run!”
“Yesterday, he hit the ball so hard it went out of the field."
“..have hit…”
“…had hit…”
“I will have hit…”
Some MAIN verbs , like ‘drove’, only occur in the Past Tense:
“I DRIVE to work each day.”
“Yesterday, I DROVE to work.”
“I have DRIVEN to work every day this week.”
“I will DRIVE…
“I will have DRIVEN…”
ALL the modals are AUXILIARY, ‘helper’ verbs, not MAIN verbs. They are used in the tenses and Conditionals and hypothetical statements TOGETHER with a MAIN verb.
‘can’ refers to present possibility: “I can play the piano.” We use ‘could’ to talk about possibility in the Past and Future:
“Before I had my accident, I could run a mile in under eight minutes.”
“My coach says that, if I train hard, I could be a top athlete one day.”
I want to stress to you that ‘could’ is not a MAIN verb and not that it IS the Past Tense of ‘can’, but that ‘could’ is an auxiliary verb USED to form the tenses. None of the modals occur on their own – they are always combined with a MAIN verb.
“He has a Honda, and I have a Mazda.”
Yet here it is, being used as an auxiliary verb to form the Present Perfect, Past Perfect, and Future Perfect:
“I have had my car for five years.”
“I bought a new car because I had had my old car for five years.”
“In a few months, I will have worked here for ten years.”
Think of the verbs ‘to hit’ and ‘to read’. Both are MAIN verbs, yet:
‘hit’ and ‘read’ are the Present Tense, Past Tense, the Present Perfect and Past Perfect, and Future Perfect:
“Now, hit the ball with the cricket bat and run!”
“Yesterday, he hit the ball so hard it went out of the field."
“..have hit…”
“…had hit…”
“I will have hit…”
Some MAIN verbs , like ‘drove’, only occur in the Past Tense:
“I DRIVE to work each day.”
“Yesterday, I DROVE to work.”
“I have DRIVEN to work every day this week.”
“I will DRIVE…
“I will have DRIVEN…”
ALL the modals are AUXILIARY, ‘helper’ verbs, not MAIN verbs. They are used in the tenses and Conditionals and hypothetical statements TOGETHER with a MAIN verb.
‘can’ refers to present possibility: “I can play the piano.” We use ‘could’ to talk about possibility in the Past and Future:
“Before I had my accident, I could run a mile in under eight minutes.”
“My coach says that, if I train hard, I could be a top athlete one day.”
I want to stress to you that ‘could’ is not a MAIN verb and not that it IS the Past Tense of ‘can’, but that ‘could’ is an auxiliary verb USED to form the tenses. None of the modals occur on their own – they are always combined with a MAIN verb.
Thanks for response. I think it helped me understand better regarding Helping verbs.
Your sentence of "“My coach says that, if I train hard, I could be a top athlete one day.” If i put, "“My coach says that, if I train hard, I WILL be a top athlete one day.” Is that the same meaning? Isn't it more appropriate to use WILL because of future empahsis?
Thanks Bazza
