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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.
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 ...
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]
As is generally the case with creole languages, it is an isolating language and modality is typically indicated by the use of invariant pre-verbal auxiliaries. [5] The invariance of the modal auxiliaries to person, number, and tense makes them analogous to modal auxiliaries in English.
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 ...
The auxiliaries shall and should sometimes replace will and would in the first person. For the uses of these various verb forms, see English verbs and English clause syntax . The basic form of the verb ( be, write, play ) is used as the infinitive , although there is also a "to-infinitive" ( to be , to write , to play ) used in many syntactical ...
The first of these sentences is a basic zero conditional with both clauses in the present tense. The fourth is an example of the use of will in a condition clause [4] (for more such cases, see below). The use of verb tenses, moods and aspects in the parts of such sentences follows general principles, as described in Uses of English verb forms.
And suggests this is an example of the use of shall as a simple future marker. (i.e. that "we will.") But it also works with the use of shall to imply obligation. (i.e. that "we must.") So it's not really evidence of one use, as opposed to the other. 138.88.18.245 18:22, 10 February 2021 (UTC) Reply