EnglishClub ESL Forums

Hello Alan,

I would like to parse the following verb phrases, is this the way to do it ?

1) You must have been saddened beyond words when you heard the President’s response.
you = personal pronoun
must = modal auxiliary
have = auxiliary
been = main verb
saddened = adjective
beyond = preposition
words = noun
when = subordinating conjunction ?

2) The parcel should have been re-routed to the correct destination.
parcel = noun
should = modal
have been = auxiliaries
re-routed = main verb
to = preposition ?

Thank you in advance.
Hela

You seem to be confusing semantic with syntactic labels: in both sentences 'have' and 'been' are (nonfinite) auxiliaries, while 'saddened' and 're-routed' are past participles.

'Main verb' as a grammatical (as opposed to a semantic) label is best reserved for finite verbal elements, which are in this case the modal auxiliaries 'must' and 'should'.