Introducing English Linguistics

Table 5.5. The eight forms of the verb be
Base
-s form
-ed past
-ed participle
-ing participle
be
(I) am 
was
have been
am being
(we) are
(you) are
were
(he/she/it) is 
(they) are
Be has so many forms because it makes distinctions that other verbs do
not. For instance, while regular verbs in the present tense end in -s only
when they occur with third person singular subjects, be has three differ-
ent forms in the present tense that vary by person (e.g. am with first per-
son I and is with third person he, she, it). In addition, be has two different
past tense forms – was and were – for singular and plural subjects, a dis-
tinction not made on regular verbs.
In contrast to lexical verbs, auxiliary verbs are members of a closed
class
rather than an open class. As a result, auxiliary verbs in English are
finite in number and can simply be listed, as is done in Table 5.6.
As Table 5.6 illustrates, the primary auxiliaries be and have are marked
for number, and they indicate, as was noted earlier, the progressive and
perfective aspect, respectively. However, the primary auxiliary do has a dif-
ferent function: it mainly occurs in certain kinds of questions and negat-
ed sentences. In the first example below, did occurs with the lexical verb

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fight in a