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For instance:

“Go eat your dinner.”

It appears that the word “go” is being used as a helping verb. Is it being used a helping verb? If so, can “go” only be used as a helping verb in imperative sentences?

Jessica Tiberio
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Advait Ramesh
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  • Nope, I want to go eat dinner now. [in fact, I do. :)] . Mother to child: Go eat your dinner now. I want to leave immediately. Mother to child: Leave immediately. I don't want to play tennis. Husband to wife: Play tennis, don't complain. – Lambie May 15 '18 at 21:12
  • "Go" is not grammatically a helping verb in standard English, but it serves the purpose of one. – Greg Lee May 15 '18 at 21:25
  • 'Go get a life' and 'Go figure' are perilously close to a helping verb, I would suggest. – Nigel J May 15 '18 at 22:03
  • This is what's called a "Serial Verb Construction". Many languages use them extensively, but English limits them to verbs of coming and going, in several constructions: Go get it, Go and get it, Come get it, Come and get it. The ones with and allow past tense, but the ones without and don't: He went and got it, but not *He went got it. – John Lawler May 15 '18 at 23:17

2 Answers2

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It is a usage of the verb go that is followed by the 'plain form' (or bare infinitive form) of another verb. The idea is

To move, travel, or proceed (to somewhere) so as to perform a specified action, or for the purpose of a specified or implied activity...(often with the sense of movement weakened)

(Oxford English Dictionary, OED)

The OED labels this usage as (nowadays) "colloquial" in North America and nonstandard in British English. It gives examples of this construction as far back as Old English. An example from Early Modern English comes from 1591, Edmund Spenser:

Now thou maist go pack.

which means "Now you may go pack."

Jane Austen wrote in 1813:

Your Streatham & my Bookham may go hang.

It is not always used as an imperative phrase, as

You wanna go see a movie?

shows.

The same construction is also found in such "imprecatory phrases" (OED) as

go fly a kite
go take a flying leap
go jump in a lake
go f**k yourself

and even

go figure

NOTE also that in the USA (apparently not nowadays in the UK) we use the verb come in a similar fashion to idicate "an action or activity which is the consequence or purpose of movement," as these OED citations show:

from about 1375:

He praide ȝou com speke wiþ him.

which means

He prayed(?) you come speak with him.

And about 1616 (Shakespeare):

Quicke, quicke, wee'le come dresse you straight.

(Quick, quick, we'll come dress you straight.)

and 2007:

I have half a mind to call the men in white coats to come take you away.

(Tamar Myers, Hell hath No Curry)

Arm the good guys in America
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This reminds me: There is a novel by Harper Lee (written long ago, but only recently published), Go Set a Watchman.

That title comes from the King James version of the Bible (Isaiah 21:6)... but note the punctuation: Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.

So maybe Go eat your dinner should be punctuated as Go, eat your dinner. That is: two separate clauses, connected by a comma.

GEdgar
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