Helping or regular verb?

Question

In "But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times." The word have is what kind of verb? Is it helping?

Answer 1

"The Answer Man" is wrong. I teach English.

In your sentence:
We = subject
Have = verb
To make an effort in the United States = infinitival phrase
To make an effort to understand = infinitival phrase
To go beyond these rather difficult times = infinitival phrase

Every sentence must have a finite verb. "Have" can sometimes be a helping verb, as in "I have eaten this whole sandwich," where "eaten" is the finite verb and "have" is helping define its temporal parameters.

But in your example sentence, "have" is the main/regular/finite verb. The infinitival phrases are acting as direct objects, which are nouns. In other words, "We have to make an effort in the United States" is the same sentence construction (subject-verb-object) as "I threw the ball."

Got it?

Short answer: "have" can be either helping or regular, but in this case, it's helping.

Answer 2

Hi! I'm Harry Helping Verb and I'm so helpful I will help you learn the 23 Helping Verbs by telling you a story. The title of the story is Old Mr. Do. Like some stories, this story has a moral. The moral is: "Maybe Mr. Do should have a will". Read on and you will see why!

Old Mr. Do
Once upon a time there was a wealthy merchant named Mr. Do. Mr. Do was very old and very rich. His many relatives were dreaming of the day the old man would die. They wondered which one of them would inherit his money. Finally, one day Mr. Do did die. All the relatives searched his house for a will. They didn't find one. They searched his house three times. They still did not find a will. The relatives did not get one dime of Mr. Do's fortune.

The moral: Maybe Mr. Do should have a will.

Just remember this sentence and you will know how to set up a chart of the 23 helping verbs! The largest "family" is the "BE" family with eight members. The other five families have three members each.

Helping Verbs may
might
must

be
being
been
am
are
is
was
were
(may also be a main verb)

do
does
did
(may also be a main verb)

should
could
would

have
had
has
(may also be a main verb)

will
can
shall

Notice that verbs in three of the families may also stand alone and be the main verb of a sentence. For example:

We are teaching you about helping verbs. ("are"-helping verb, "teaching"-main verb)
We are in the fourth grade at Brisas Elementary. ( "are" is the main verb)

Other things to keep in mind:

Not every sentence will have a helping verb with the main verb.
When you see an "ing" verb such as "running", be on the lookout for a helping verb also.

Sometimes there is another word which separates the helping verb from the main verb. One common example is "not", as in: The boy couldn't find his socks. The helping verb is could and the main verb is find.

A sentence may contain up to three helping verbs to the main verb. An example would be: The dog must have been chasing the cat. The helping verbs are: must, have, and been; the main verb is chasing (See Rule #2 above!).

It is a helping verb. Go to the link below for a complete discussion

Answer 3

Regular

Answer 4

I think it is a helping verb!!

Answer 5

To make is an infinitive, so have is helping.

Answer 6

helping