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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 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 ...
Ain't meaning didn't is widely considered unique to African-American Vernacular English, [16] although it can be found in some dialects of Caribbean English as well. [17] It may function not as a true variant of didn't, but as a creole-like tense-neutral negator (sometimes termed "generic ain't"). [16]
I haven't the foggiest idea. Most combinations of auxiliary/copula plus not have a contracted form ending in suffix -n't, such as isn't, won't, etc. The relevant contractions for negations formed using do-support are don't, doesn't and didn't. Such forms are used very frequently in informal English.
However, in Germanic languages such as English and German, the intermediate stage was a case of double negation, as the current negatives not and nicht in these languages originally meant "nothing": e.g. Old English ic ne seah "I didn't see" >> Middle English I ne saugh nawiht, lit. "I didn't see nothing" >> Early Modern English I saw not. [30 ...
The difference is due to how long the topic is thought to stay on the table. The British meaning is based on the idea that the topic will be on the table for only a short time and is there for the purpose of being discussed and voted on; the American meaning is based on the idea of leaving the topic on the table indefinitely and thereby ...
Don't, a 2020 American game show with Adam Scott and Ryan Reynolds; DONT, Disturb Opponents' Notrump, a bridge bidding convention "-dont" (actually "-odont"), a suffix meaning "tooth", used in taxonomy
The clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction, a semicolon that functions as a conjunction, a colon instead of a semicolon between two sentences when the second sentence explains or illustrates the first sentence and no coordinating conjunction is being used to connect the sentences, or a conjunctive adverb preceded by a semicolon. A ...