Helping verbs do just as their name suggests, they help the main verb in a sentence by expanding upon the meaning. When combined with the main verb they make up a verb phrase. They add detail to the use of time in a sentence and make a sentence more complex. They are often used in the progressive and perfect tenses. They can also add other forms of meaning to a sentence such as probability, potential, expectations, direction, obligation, and permission. In linguistic terms they are known as 'auxiliary' verbs.
Since these verbs 'help' give meaning, they are not the main action of the sentence. In other words, if you were to take away a helper verb, the principal action verb (main verb) would remain. If you were to take away the principal verb, leaving only the helper verb - the sentence would lose its meaning. Thus a good question to use to figure out the helper verb is "If I take out this verb, will it still have a main action? Will it still have the same meaning?"
For example, with the sentence "I have drank three coffees today", if you take out the verb "have", you still have the main point of the sentence which has to do with drinking. If you take out "drank" you don't know what the sentence is trying to say. Does it refer to buying coffee? Making coffee? It is unclear without the main verb. Another example is "Who has listened to the new song?". If you take out "has" you still get the meaning of the sentence, but if you take out "listened" the meaning is lost.
Some examples of helper verbs include: be, are, am, were, has, have, may, can could, should, must, will, would.
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