Auxiliaries
Concept: Use of ‘was’ and ‘were’
Definition
- Auxiliary is a helping verb as it helps another verb by giving more details about the mood or tense of the main verb.
- Auxiliaries are divided into two sections: primary auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries.
- Now, primary auxiliaries are further sub-divided into three parts: be, have, and do.
- ‘Was’ and ‘Were’ fall under the category of ‘be’ auxiliaries.
Today, we will learn about ‘was’ and ‘were’ auxiliaries.
Let’s Learn about ‘was’ and ‘were’!
- ‘Was’ and ‘Were’ are the past form of the verb ‘be’.
- One of the most common roles of these verbs is to express tense.
- The tense means the time when the event took place. The tense depends on the time when the statement is spoken.
- The auxiliary ‘was’ and ‘were’ are auxiliary verbs that talk about one or more nouns in the past.
- Was
- Were
The auxiliary ‘was’ is used with singular pronouns like I, he, she, and it.
Examples:
‘Were’ is used with both singular and plural pronouns like you, your, yours, we, and they.
Examples:
Exceptions
Usually, ‘was’ is for singular objects and ‘were’ is used for plural objects. But with the pronoun ‘you’, always use ‘were’ even though it is singular.
Examples:
