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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.
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 result of the evaluation is called the modal force. [2]: 649 For example, the utterance in (4) expresses that, according to what the speaker has observed, it is necessary to conclude that John has a rather high income: (4) John must be earning a lot of money. The modal base here is the knowledge of the speaker, the modal force is necessity.
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 ...
Modal words are words in a language that express modality, i.e., possibility, necessity, or contingency. [1] One kind of modal word is the modal verb ( should , can , might , and ought , as well as oblige , need , and require ).
Modal adjectives can express modality regarding a situation or a participant in that situation. With situations, some usual syntactic patterns include an extraposed subject, [3] such as the underlined elements in the following examples with the modal adjective in bold. Here the modal adjective is analyzed semantically as a sentential modal ...
In the above sentences, shall might be replaced by will without change of intended meaning, although the form with will could also be interpreted as a plain statement about the expected future. The use of shall is often associated with formality and/or seriousness, in addition to the coloring of the meaning.
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used for signaling modality. [1] [2]: 181 [3] That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (for example, a statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.).