Some sentences containing representative auxiliary verbs from English, German, and French follow, with the auxiliary verb marked in bold: a. Do you want tea? – do is an auxiliary accompanying the main verb want, used here to form a question – see do-support. b. He had given his all. – had is an auxiliary used in expressing the perfect aspect of give. c. Das wurde mehrmals gesagt. – wurde "became" is an auxiliary used to build the passive voice in German.[2] That became many.times said = "That was said many times." d. Sie ist nach Hause gegangen. – ist "is" is an an auxiliary used with movement verbs to build the perfect tense/aspect in German.[3] She is to home gone = "She went home/She has gone home." e. J'ai vu le soleil. – ai "have" is an auxiliary used to build the perfect/tense aspect in French.[4] I have seen the sun = "I have seen the sun/I saw the sun." f. Nous sommes aides. – sommes "are" is an auxiliary used to build the passive voice in French.[5] We are helped = "We are being helped." These auxiliaries help express a question, show tense/aspect, or form passive voice. Auxiliaries like these typically appear with a full verb that carries the main semantic content of the clause. [edit]Traits of auxiliary verbs across languages Typical uses of auxiliary verbs are to help express grammatical tense, aspect, mood and voice. They typically appear together with a main verb; the auxiliary is said to "help" the main verb. The auxiliary verbs of a language form a closed class, i.e. they are relatively small in number.[6] They are often among the most frequently occurring verbs in a language.[citation needed] Widely acknowledged verbs that can serve as auxiliaries in English and many related[clarification needed] languages are the equivalents of be to express passive voice, and have to express perfect aspect or past time reference.[7] In some treatments, the copula be is classed as an auxiliary even though it does not "help" another verb, e.g. The bird is in the tree. – is serves as a copula with a predicative expression not containing any other verb. Definitions of auxiliary verbs are not always consistent across languages, or even among authors discussing the same language. Modal verbs may or may not be classified as auxiliaries depending on the language. In the case of English, verbs are often identified as auxiliaries based on their grammatical behavior, as described below. In some cases, verbs that have similar functions to auxiliaries, but are not considered full members of that class (perhaps because they carry a certain amount of independent lexical information of their own), are described as semi-auxiliaries. In French, for example, verbs such as devoir "have to", pouvoir "be able to", aller "be going to", vouloir "want", faire "make" and laisser "let", when used together with the infinitive of another verb, can be called semi-auxiliaries