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A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a likelihood, ability, permission, request, capacity, suggestion, order, obligation, necessity, possibility or advice. Modal verbs generally accompany the base (infinitive) form of another verb having semantic content. [ 1 ]
The English modal auxiliary verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality, properties such as possibility and obligation. [a] They can most easily be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participles or plain forms [b]) and by their lack of the ending ‑(e)s for the third-person singular.
One kind of modal word is the modal verb (should, can, might, and ought, as well as oblige, need, and require). Other types of modal words in English include modal adjectives (likely, probable, necessary), modal adverbs (probably, perhaps, certainly), modal prepositions (despite, unless, if), and modal nouns (possibility, probability, certainty).
English auxiliary verbs are a small set of English verbs, which include the English modal auxiliary verbs and a few others. [1]: 19 [2]: 11–12 Although the auxiliary verbs of English are widely believed to lack inherent semantic meaning and instead to modify the meaning of the verbs they accompany, they are nowadays classed by linguists as auxiliary on the basis not of semantic but of ...
This is a list of English auxiliary verbs, i.e. helping verbs, which include Modal verbs and Semi-modal verbs. See also auxiliary verbs , light verbs , and catenative verbs . Primary Auxiliary Verbs
English modal auxiliary verbs This page was last edited on 18 January 2022, at 01:05 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike ...
The modal base here is the knowledge of the speaker, the modal force is necessity. By contrast, (5) could be paraphrased as 'Given his abilities, the strength of his teeth, etc., it is possible for John to open a beer bottle with his teeth'. Here, the modal base is defined by a subset of John's abilities, the modal force is possibility.
The modal verbs shall and will have been used in the past, and continue to be used, in a variety of meanings. [8] Although when used purely as future markers they are largely interchangeable (as will be discussed in the following sections), each of the two verbs also has certain specific uses in which it cannot be replaced by the other without ...