Grammar question

What part of speech is “may”? As in, “Mother, may I?” and “I may have wild sex tonight, if the moon is full.”

It’s not a verb. It’s not a noun. It’s not an adverb, pronoun, adjective, or preposition. http://www.dictionary.com says it’s a “v. aux.”. What in Sam Hill is a v. aux.?

Anyone? Anyone?

Bueller?

v. aux. is auxiliary verb, so it is a verb. Most of what I know of grammar I learned in German class, where these verbs were called ‘modal auxiliaries’ (English term, not the same as the German term). I might guess it’s the same term in English.

Similar verbs along these lines I can think of :

can / could
shall / should
may / might
must

why’d you wanna know?

I was observing a fifth grade class today (getting teacher creds, dontcha know), and the teacher and I discussed parts of speech. It irks me not to know this stuff. It irks me even more when I ought to know it, probably did at one time, but don’t anymore.

Except you fixed that. kiss

An AUXILIARY VERB is a SUPPLEMENTAL verb that is “helping” the main verb.
Susan Raymond was resting in the shadow of a canyon oak tree.
While Susan’s action is “resting,” it is supported by the auxiliary verb “was.”
With everything going on, the captain might decide to resign his commission.
The captain’s action is “decide” and “might” helps or is auxiliary to that action.
For the past 10 years, President Marcos has given several awards for bravery.
The President’s action is “given” and is helped by “has.”

COMMON AUXILIARY VERBS:
TO BE: is, am, are, was, were, been
The commission is using stocks to purchase development rights.
The agencies are restricting logging and road building in the forests.
Brill was lagging in the polls behind Richards.
The agencies were completing the inventories.
Moskowitz has been offered a similar project.
TO DO: do, did, does
Volunteers do spend their weekends mapping the nation’s forests.
Clinton did agree to ban logging on 40 million acres.
Time does run out for these wildlands.
TO HAVE: has, had, have
Brent has planned this party down to the last detail.
The governor had exhausted all of the options.
Someone should have predicted these complications.
SHALL, WILL, MAY, CAN, SHOULD, COULD, WOULD,
This portion will not be eligible for protection under the 1964 Wilderness Act.
The Clinton Administration may try to make the most of public support for preserving open space.
Only Congress can formally protect lands under the Wilderness Act.
They should limit its real estate holdings.
Preservation could become one of Clinton’s most significant accomplishments.
The legislation would provide guaranteed funding.
http://grammar.uoregon.edu/verbs/verbs.html

And just to jog your memory further, may is generally used to indicate the subjunctive mood of a verb, (the one that indicates a conditional action that, perhaps, will not actually occur).

I know where panamajack is coming from. I didn’t learn much grammar in English class – I learned it in Spanish class. Our teacher would say, for instance, “‘lo’ is the direct object” and we would be, like, “What’s a direct object?”

A bit off-topic, but does anyone know a way to describe the difference between ‘may’ and ‘might’. Or isn’t there any? I’m not sure myself, but I’ve been asked this many times by students in my English classes.

Everything you wanted to know about modal auxiliary verbs.

Everything you wanted to know about modal auxiliary verbs.

May and might do have a slight difference. I.E. Might is the archaic past tense of may and generally has a more subjunctive meaning.

E.G. I may have wild sex today = I’m not sure but there is a good possibility.
I might have wild sex today = It most likely ain’t gonna happen but I’m not ruling it out entirely.

It’s the same difference between can/could, shall/should, and will/would. However, could, should, and would are also still used to express the past tense of can, shall, and will respectively.

Also, as a note, modals in English are somewhat odd, because even though they are verbs, they sometimes lack an infinitive. (Except can, which in the infinitive mood is “to be able.”)

English modals are odd, but not unique. Other languages’ modals also often lack infinitives and other forms that other verbs often have. They also are often irregular as are the verbs ‘to be’, ‘to go’ and ‘to have’. Although there is another explanation for the irregularity. The more often words are used the less likely they are to be changed which leads to the irregularities which are actually just older versions of the language peeking through to the present (as seen in the English plurals ‘men’, ‘women’, ‘children’, etc.)