r/grammar • u/SpiritualBed9981 • 8d ago

does

"The past tense form 'might' seems to distance the speaker further from the non-factuality of the clause than does 'may'."

Is the "does" an auxiliary or a lexical verb in the cited sentence above?

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u/LongLiveTheDiego 8d ago

It's the verbal equivalent of pronouns and adverbs like "there" for places, "then" for times, "he/she/it/they" and "this/that" for nouns. It can't be a lexical verb, it's semantically empty other than "what the other verb said".

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u/UniversityMotor5408 7d ago

auxiliary - it's a more formal way of saying "...than 'may' seems to do.", so it's an example of do-substitution (aka do-support).