On the Universality of Auxiliary Verbs

Abstract

Cross-linguistically, it has often been observed that there is no any specific language-independent formal definition that can be used to determine the characterization of any given element as an auxiliary verb. This paper, though it agrees to some extent with this observation, argues that there is still room to find some universal properties that help us end up with the conclusion that auxiliaries and lexical verbs are two distinct types of syntactic entities. To this end, this paper describes the characteristics necessary for what is to count as an auxiliary verb. Having done that, the paper turns to illustrate the most common properties that can be found among languages in order to find a clear universally agreed definition of an auxiliary verb.