Talk:English modal auxiliary verb

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Is anyone unhappy with this page? Ken H 13:31:04, 2005-08-04 (UTC)

I've rewritten the page completely; I didn't add the content you added below, because I wasn't familiar with all of it and as you didn't put it in the article itself, I couldn't be sure that you considered it to be of article quality. Feel free to add any of the below information (though please make sure that a bit of information isn't already in the article before you go ahead and add it). Ruakh 21:32, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Excellent! (DO went invisible on me. Thanks.) In turn I was just being careful/tentative about the bigger picture, since I am a new member. I'm still trying to ascend to conformance with you and others. I left queries at User_talk:Ruakh. Ken H 02:07:15, 2005-08-05 (UTC)
You seem to be off to a good start. :-)
One thing to keep in mind is that unless there's a serious problem with an article (e.g., an NPOV dispute), the editing process should be as transparent as possible to the reader. For example, comments about how an article can be improved should go on a Talk page. (Or, if you're okay with their only being seen by people who are either editing the article or looking at the edit history, then you can put them in the article within <!-- -->, which prevents them from appearing when someone simply views the article.)
BTW, I've moved Grammatical modality rev to be a subpage of your talk page, which is considered the appropriate place for works-in-progress. (Alternatively, you could have made it a subpage of Talk:Grammatical modality; but either way, it shouldn't be in the Article namespace.)
Anyway, welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy it here. :-) Ruakh 02:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Revision 3 in progress

The initial eleven (and most common) English modals or modal auxiliary verbs are below.

will      shall      may        can                  strong present tense forms
would     should     might      could                gradiently weak past forms
do        must       ought (to)                                  non-conforming

The words dare and need were used as modals in the past. They appear less often in contemporary English. Please look in any good dictionary (or in Wiktionary) to find all of the roles that these verbs will serve.

A modal auxiliary verb helps the following bare infinitive express a meaning or an idea, changing its manner or agency, and thereby the mode or mood of the sentence's subject↔predicate relationship.

In English, modal auxiliary verbs are defective; for example, they do not have participle forms (no -ing or -ed endings) or infinitives (dare and need are modern exceptions).

They busily express the future, the owed, the possible, permitted, required, ability, politeness or uncertainty, and much more. Speech and language make continuous use of moods on a spectrum from the absolutely vague to the irresistable and done. Order, wish, everything we can think or try. Any utterance has a discoverable modality or mood. Modals exhibit <add feature set: gradience; distributional facts; [internal structure/op char/c-cmd/infinitive-issues]; ... >. They are frequently and powerfully used at all levels of speaking and writing, or justice and play.

Mr. Wales will have a party.                                 deontic mood or future tense
Mr. Wales would be delighted if you came to his party.     conditional mood or politeness 
You must come.                                                     directive mood or plea

The types of mood provided for these sentences (above right) are very incomplete, since modals can express a multiplicity of ideas.

Fix this page further per Ruakh's suggestions addressing modal DO and other entries.

For more information on the other helper verbs be, do and have, etc., see the page on auxiliary verbs.

[edit] Further references

Academic references:

  • Palmer, F.R. Mood and Modality.
  • Jesperson, Quer, Jackendoff, Chomsky (2), Givon, Wurmbrandt, etc.

[edit] Daren't, needn't and will

  • Daren't and needn't are still pretty common in colloquial British English in my experience; the full forms dare not and need not are less so. More (non-original!) research is needed here.
  • Will, being non-modal, doesn't really belong here, although it would belong in a list of defective verbs. What do people think about a redirect from English defective verbs?

Hairy Dude 01:43, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mought

Is it the past tense of might? You can find it in some books 200 years or older. 203.218.86.162 02:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Nope. The OED gives mought as an archaic form of the modal auxiliary might, but does not suggest it had any additional past-tense sense. (BTW, mought had a few other uses as well, all archaic.) Ruakh 11:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Must / have to

The article says "have to is synonymous with must". But surely, "doesn't have to" doesn't mean the same thing as "must not"? -- 129.78.208.4 05:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Correct: in some of the auxiliary verbs, the negative attaches semantically to the infinitive; "must not X" (or "mustn't X") means "must not-X", not "not-must X", and is therefore equivalent to "has/have to not X", not "do/does not have to X". In others, it attaches semantically to the auxiliary; "cannot X" (or "can't X") means "not-can X", not "can not-X" (though the rare "can not X", as in "You can do it, or you can not do it; it's all the same to me", does mean "can not-X"). In yet others, it's ambiguous; "may not X" can easily mean either one, with a slight difference in intonation drawing the distinction (e.g., in "it may not be obvious", it's "may not-X", while in "you may not leave here", it's "not-may X"). The article should probably discuss this, eh? —RuakhTALK 05:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't accept "have to" as a modal verb any more than I would accept "be able to" or "be going to". They may have similar meanings to "must", "can", or "will" but they have a wider grammar.

  • She can read books
  • She is able to read books
  • She has been able to read books since last year
  • She must be able to read books
  • She has to be able to read books
  • She has had to be able to read books to do his job
  • She will have to be able to read books
  • She is going to have to be able to read books
  • She has been going to have to be able to read books for some time, though luckily for her the surprise test hasn't happened yet

I would only see three modal verbs (can, must and will), none of which appear in the final line because English modal verbs are defective. --Henrygb 15:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] used to

"Used to" probably should be included as a modal as well. It exhibits most of the necessary properties, except that its negation is "didn't used to" rather than "used to not"; compare with "ought to" vs. "ought not". Jepflast (talk) 05:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

"Used not to" and "Usedn't to" are sometimes found, at least in British English, although they may be a little old-fashioned. 86.164.11.233 (talk) 07:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)