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I googled "auxiliary verbs" just in order to check if there is something I do not know about them and I found this site.But I think there is misleading information on the site.

For example it is written on the site:

Do / does / did Do is common for forming questions and making negatives.

Did is used for do and does in the past tense. Do and does is never used for the past.

In statements

I do my homework.

You do the laundry.

We do the washing up.

They do yoga.

He/she does the cleaning.

But I don't think these "do/does" in the example sentences are auxiliary verb, they are main verb.Could you check the page please? or am I the one who reads wrongly?

http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/what-are-auxiliary-verbs

Mrt
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  • Do you have any reason for needing this? IE a project or something? It will help me to better understand how to help you. – Trevor Clarke Jan 28 '15 at 13:33
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    Use of do as main verb – CowperKettle Jan 28 '15 at 13:49
  • @CopperKettle So I am right, aren't I – Mrt Jan 28 '15 at 13:54
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    None of your examples use *do* as an "auxiliary verb". But in every case it would be possible to add another *do* after the highlighted term (the first one would then become an auxiliary). The first such example ("I do do my homework!") would be an emphatic refutation of a statement like "You never do your homework!" Or you could use *have* as an auxiliary - "I have* done my homework!"* – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '15 at 14:08
  • @Murat - I'm busy at the moment but I guess you might try to find some list of auxiliary verb features, some "linguistic tests" helping to distinguish a main (lexical) verb from an auxiliary. – CowperKettle Jan 28 '15 at 14:11
  • @CopperKettle It is ok.No need really.Thank you .FumbleFingers conforms I am right. – Mrt Jan 28 '15 at 14:14
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is asking about the validity of information on a random website. It is also asking SE/ELL users to proofread sentences from a random website. –  Jan 29 '15 at 00:05

1 Answers1

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The original Poster is quite right. DO in these examples is lexical or 'main verb' DO, not the auxiliary verb DO:

I do my homework.

You do the laundry.

We do the washing up.

They do yoga.

He/she does the cleaning.

We can show this by doing some tests. To make negatives in English we put not or n't after the auxiliary verb. But this will not work with these sentences:

  • *I don't my homework. (ungrammatical)
  • *You don't the laundry. (ungrammatical)
  • *We do not the washing up. (ungrammatical)
  • *They don't yoga. (ungrammatical)
  • *She doesn't the cleaning. (ungrammatical)

Also we cannot make questions here by inverting the subject and DO. If DO was an auxiliary here then this would be possible but it itn't:

  • *Do I my homework? (ungrammatical)
  • *Do you the laundry? (ungrammatical)
  • *Do you the washing up? (ungrammatical)
  • *Do they yoga? (ungrammatical)
  • *Does she the cleaning? (ungrammatical)

If we want to make grammatical questions and negatives here we need to use the auxiliary verb DO as well as the lexical verb DO:

negatives

  • I don't do my homework.
  • You don't do the laundry.
  • We do not do the washing up.
  • They don't do yoga.
  • She doesn't do the cleaning.

questions

  • Do I do my homework?
  • Do you do the laundry?
  • Do you do the washing up?
  • Do they do yoga?
  • Does she do the cleaning?

Also if we want to give emphatic versions of the sentence we need to add an auxiliary DO to the sentences:

  • I do do my homework!
  • You do do the laundry!
  • We do do the washing up!
  • They do do yoga!
  • She does do the cleaning!

All of this data shows that the Original Poster's examples use main verb DO and not the auxiliary verb.

The site that the OP links to is published by a language school company. Never go to one of these schools!

Note For some people yoga seems to be a verb. In this case, They do yoga would be an emphatic version of they yoga! Don't copy this in writing because it isn't standard (yet!)

Araucaria - Not here any more.
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