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Nonetheless, even among speakers (the majority) who do not follow the rule about using shall as the unmarked form in the first person, there is still a tendency to use shall and will to express different shades of meaning (reflecting aspects of their original Old English senses). Thus shall is used with the meaning of obligation, and will with ...
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.
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 ...
In English, the future perfect construction consists of a future construction such as the auxiliary verb will (or shall) or the going-to future and the perfect infinitive of the main verb (which consists of the infinitive of the auxiliary verb have and the past participle of the main verb). This parallels the construction of the "normal" future ...
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.
It is an alternative to other ways of referring to the future in English, such as the future construction formed with will (or shall) – in some contexts the different constructions are interchangeable, while in others they carry somewhat different implications.
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The will/shall future consists of the modal verb will or shall together with the bare infinitive of the main verb, as in "He will win" or "I shall win". ( Prescriptive grammarians prefer will in the second and third persons and shall in the first person, reversing the forms to express obligation or determination, but in practice shall and will ...