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Generally, however, will is far more common than shall. Use of shall is normally a marked usage, typically indicating formality or seriousness and (if not used with a first person subject) expressing a colored meaning as described below. In most dialects of English, the use of shall as a future marker is viewed as archaic. [9]
In English, the modal verbs commonly used are can, could, may, might, ... This shall not be viewed kindly. You shall not pass. – should: That should be surprising.
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.
shall not (archaic) shan’ shall not shan’t: shall not she’d: she had / she would she’ll: she shall / she will she’s: she has / she is she'd'nt've (informal) she did not have / she would not have should’ve: should have shouldn’t: should not shouldn’t’ve (informal) should not have somebody’s: somebody has / somebody is someone’s
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 ...
Shall is regarded as being a modal verb which can only be used with I and We. However, by analysing the Corpus of the English language we can conclude it is used with other persons as well. For instance, in the lyrics to the song Moonchild, by Iron Maiden, shall is used with you (you shall be damned), conveying the meaning of a threat.
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English irregular verbs are now a closed group, which means that newly formed verbs are always regular and do not adopt any of the irregular patterns. This list only contains verb forms which are listed in the major dictionaries as being standard usage in modern English. There are also many thousands of archaic, non-standard and dialect variants.