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I wanted to know if we can use did and wanted in the same sentence.For example in the following sentence:

What did he wanted to prove through the experiment?

Is this a correct sentence? It uses did and wanted together.

Araucaria - Not here any more.
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Swati Misra
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5 Answers5

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In English we can only have one tensed verb in a verb phrase. The auxiliary DO is always tensed. It is always either past tense or present tense.

If we use the auxiliary DO, the Complement verb phrase will always use a PLAIN form of the verb. This is the word you see in the dictionary.

  • She didn't WANT a chocolate.

Notice in the sentence above that because did is in the past tense, the verb want cannot be past tense. It is in the plain form. Notice also that the verb want is not present tense. The following sentence is ungrammatical:

  • She didn't wants a chocolate. (ungrammatical).

For these reasons the Original Poster's example needs to use the verb want in the plain form:

What did he want to prove through the experiment?

Araucaria - Not here any more.
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  • Tense is not a verb in English with the meaning you ascribe to it. One tenses one's muscles, one does not "tense" a verb. To try and explain to someone how action verbs are put into the simple past by saying "the auxiliary DO is always tensed" is pretty confusing. – Lambie Apr 23 '17 at 14:33
  • @Lambie Altough tense is not yet found in most dictionaries, it is used by grammarians and in grammar books students use. A search engine will return quite a few examples including on Stack Exchange sites (ELU & GL for instance). Wiktionary has it ((grammar, transitive) To apply a tense to.) Usage often precedes dictionary entries. – None Apr 23 '17 at 14:49
  • @Lambie I read lots of grammar books, I can't even recall them. And the most common way they describe what a finite verb is is by saying it's "tensed". Even TRomano says so. And please don't take things too literally. – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 23 '17 at 15:00
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    @Lambie "tensed verb" is a normal way to refer to a verb that has tense in English. It's completely idiomatic and totally normal. Of course, whether it's a verb or an adjective there is up for debate .... – Araucaria - Not here any more. Apr 23 '17 at 15:03
  • No, there is no debate here about verbs versus adjectives. And no, if you teach English to beginners, you don't say a tensed verb. That term would be marked as linguistics, not ELL, unless ELL pedagogy. ('orrible word). You say a verb in the present tense, a verb in the past tense, etc. – Lambie Apr 23 '17 at 15:09
  • @Lambie It's clearly explained in the answer. "It's either past tense or present tense". – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 23 '17 at 15:16
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    @user178049 Yes, its clearly explained in my answer. For an English Language Learner. In the OP's question, there is a mistake in the past tense. The auxiliary of action verbs is not past tense or present tense. The auxiliary of an action verb can be /have/ or /would/ also: I have painted, I would paint: neither is past or present. – Lambie Apr 23 '17 at 15:20
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When using a verb to do, you must use the plain form of verb after it. And the verb to do is sufficient to mark the tense.

What did he want to prove through the experiment? (did marks past tense).

But there is an exception for this rule. You can use do/did with a past tense form of verb in a cleft-sentence because the verb to do functions as a lexical verb, not as an auxiliary.

All he did was eat the food.

Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini
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    +1 Nice answer. You can get round your cleft exception by saying that the verb did takes a complement with a plain form. In your cleft sentence the verb was is not a complement of did. The word did is part of the subject and the verb was is the predicator. They aren't in the same VP :) There are many sentences which can do this "That he did what he did was not surprising", for example. The second did is part of the subject, but was is the head of the predicate verb phrase. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Apr 23 '17 at 09:25
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    Yes @AraucariaMan, but I think the cleft structure is a horse of a different color. And I actually tried to make my answer as simple as possible since the OP doesn't even know how the auxliary verb works. Anyway, your comment is appreciated! :) – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 23 '17 at 09:43
  • I'm fine with any kind of downvote. But the OP please disregard it, I raised the most important exception here, which is in the cleft sentence. – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 23 '17 at 14:58
  • I think someone did a driveby downvote! Everyone on the page got downvoted!!! Pity. I thought there were 4.5 good answers here :-) – Araucaria - Not here any more. Apr 23 '17 at 15:01
  • Saying did is a verb in OP's sentence can be very confusing for a learner and is not grammatically correct. Do here is an auxiliary (see Araucaria Man's answer). It would be a verb in "I always do the housework at the weekend". See what Barrie England says about it here on ELL, it's very good and clear to my point of view. – None Apr 23 '17 at 15:25
  • @Laure Hmm.. Why are taking it so literally? Saying verb to do, verb to have, and verb to be is a very common way to generalize it. And that's why I mentioned the exception for a cleft-sentence(i.e when the verb DO is used as a lexical or main verb rather than an auxiliary) – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 23 '17 at 15:29
  • This is not talking "literally". It is important to use the words that describe a reality and used by grammar books and most language teachers, chiefly if OP is - as you mentioned - a beginner. Auxiliary verbs and lexical verbs are entirely different things and the difference is introduced very early when teaching EFL, as it is essential to grasp the way the English language works. You can study the language at a very high level and never hear of a cleft sentence. I doubt the page you are linking to can help OP. – None Apr 23 '17 at 15:43
  • @Laure But auxiliary is short for auxiliary verb in many grammars (though not all of them). :-) – Araucaria - Not here any more. Apr 23 '17 at 15:53
  • @AraucariaMan auxiliary verb is not verb ! They are different grammatical categories. Verb is sometimes used for lexical verb, never for auxiliary. – None Apr 23 '17 at 16:00
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    @Laure See page 29 here, and then pages 37-40: A Student's Introduction to English Grammar Huddleston & Pullum 2005. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Apr 23 '17 at 16:07
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    @Laure Or you could see here from the Internet Grammar of English published by UCL university. This page here – Araucaria - Not here any more. Apr 23 '17 at 16:12
  • @AraucariaMan Helping verb is what I use. It seems the page you're linking to says auxiliary verbs and lexical verbs differ, or are we understanding it differently? – None Apr 23 '17 at 16:22
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    @Laure here, it's similar to SIEG. I would like to know which book that says auxliary verb is not a verb. – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 23 '17 at 16:28
  • @user178049 Nobody says auxiliary verb is not a verb. I said "Verb is sometimes used for lexical verb, never for auxiliary", which replying to AraucariaMan's comment meant: auxiliary verb is never shortened as verb but as auxiliary. I would not object to your answer if instead of writing "when using a verb to do" you had written "when using the auxiliary do" (removing the to that marks it as a lexical verb). I would like to know which book says an auxiliary verb is a lexical verb, which is what your answer implies, there's no "exception": they're different words. – None Apr 23 '17 at 17:24
  • @Laure I said I use the term verb to do to generalize the concept. "Verb to do" includes both auxliary and lexical verb. – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 23 '17 at 17:30
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Declarative sentence in the simple past in English: He wanted to prove something with his experiment.

Interrogative sentence in English: Did he want to prove something with his experiment?

Interrogative pronouns follow the interrogative sentence rule: What did he want to prove etc. How did he want to prove etc. Where did he want to prove When did he want to prove etc.

The word did in the simple past and the words do/does [careful with the s in the third person] are the helping verbs used to make interrogative sentences in English. In the interrogative form, the subject and the verb are inverted.

Do you like tea? Did you like the tea served at the party?

This is basic English grammar. And that is the proper terminology for explaining it in the simplest way.

Please do not edit this answer. It is structured the way I want it to be structured.

Lambie
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  • Hmmm. Not sure ... "Did he be happy?" "Did you be in when the accident happened?" "Did you had already asked him?" – Araucaria - Not here any more. Apr 23 '17 at 09:53
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    Clearly, the OP does not know how to form the simple past interrogative for an action verb. And probably doesn't know how to in the present either. Of course, one can't cover everything in the English language in every question, i.e. the verb /be/. – Lambie Apr 23 '17 at 14:30
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You can simplify your question a lot: "Is 'he did wanted' correct?"

And the answer is "no". In English, when you use a modal verb, only the modal verb is inflected; the main verb remains as the bare infinitive.

So "He did want" instead of "He did wanted", and "He does want" instead of "He does wants".

Read this article about modal verbs.

Michael Lorton
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With did, or didn't, the main verb following it takes the present tense.

What did he wanted to prove through the experiment?

What did he 'want' to prove through the experiment?

Another example- "Why didn't I get the ice cream?"

"Oh, I didn't know that you didn't get any."

Aanchal S
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  • want is not the present tense after to do. – green_ideas Apr 23 '17 at 15:26
  • Yes... that's why I mentioned only did and did not... I never mentioned the infinitive. – Aanchal S Apr 23 '17 at 16:06
  • Your statement "With did, or didn't, the main verb following it takes the present tense" provides incorrect information. The main verb is not in the present tense. It is not in any tense. It is the plain form or base infinitive. – green_ideas Apr 23 '17 at 16:12
  • Ok... agree.. but you should have mentioned it in your previous comment to clarify. – Aanchal S Apr 23 '17 at 16:15