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Both shall and will may be contracted to -'ll, most commonly in affirmative statements where they follow a subject pronoun. Their negations, shall not and will not, also have contracted forms: shan't and won't (although shan't is rarely used in North America, and is becoming rarer elsewhere too). See English auxiliaries and contractions.
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.
As in English, modality can be indicated either lexically, with main verbs such as yào "want" followed by another main verb, or with auxiliary verbs. In Mandarin the auxiliary verbs have six properties that distinguish them from main verbs: [8]: pp.173–174 They must co-occur with a verb (or an understood verb).
The first English grammar, Bref Grammar for English by William Bullokar, published in 1586, does not use the term "auxiliary" but says: All other verbs are called verbs-neuters-un-perfect because they require the infinitive mood of another verb to express their signification of meaning perfectly: and be these, may, can, might or mought, could, would, should, must, ought, and sometimes, will ...
Clearly this is an exceptional case where shall is better. --Sluggoster 09:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC) As for shall vs should, my (northwestern US) ears prefer shall but the difference is very slight. Shall focuses on your magnimony, and you may already be half-standing when you say it.
The English modal verbs consist of the core modals can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, as well as ought (to), had better, and in some uses dare and need. [20] These do not inflect for person or number, [ 20 ] do not occur alone, and do not have infinitive or participle forms (except synonyms, as with be/being/been able (to ...
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
An English irregular verb’s simple past tense form is typically distinct from its past participle (with which the auxiliary to have constructs the past perfect), as in went vs. have gone (of to go), despite them being the same for regular verbs, as in demanded vs. have demanded (of to demand).