do-deletion/insertion/support

A set of RULES in GENERATIVE SYNTAX which determine the use of the EMPTY AUXILIARY VERB do. ‘Do-insertion’ or ‘do-support’ inserts the verb do into a place in a STRUCTURE, as part of the DERIVATION of a sentence. An example is in some types of TAG QUESTIONS, where to form a tag from the sentence It wants cleaning a do needs to be introduced, viz. . . . doesn’t it. It is primarily used where a TENSE-marker has no verb FORMATIVE to attach to, as with tense variation in question forms (e.g. did X happen). ‘Do-deletion’ would apply if a do form previously generated by the rules for a given sentence were to be deleted.