Re: Question about "do"

Erin Notagain wrote:
> What exactly is the word "do"?
>
> "Do you want to go with me?"
> "I do not want to."
As I recall from Early Transformational Grammar, "do" serves to carry the
tense and negative when these are fronted in certain transformations--
Question, Negative, Negative Question/Imperative-- when the main verb was in
simple present or past tense (i.e. no other auxiliary verb was present to do
the job).

Older English allowed simple subj-verb inversion and kept the negative
after, in questions etc, like modern German....
Thou knowest (not)...
Knowest thou (not)...?
You know not....
Know you not....? = Don't you know...?
Go (thou) to...!
Go (thou)  not to....! = Don't go to....!

Poets still use these, but they're certainly rare in ordinary speech.

Apparently at least by King James' times, both could be used-- "Consider the
lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin."

"Do" also serves to replace a verb phrase in anaphora:
He likes toast and jam, and I do too, or
.........but I don't.

And in the tag questions--
He likes toast and jam, doesn't he?
He doesn't like toast and jam, does he?

 There's also the British usage (which may be on its way out, though one
still hears it in TV imports)--
He doesn't go to church as often as he used to do.

(How about: "He goes to church more often than he used to do" was that ever
OK?)

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