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Thus shall may be used (particularly in the second and third persons) to imply a command, promise or threat made by the speaker (i.e., that the future event denoted represents the will of the speaker rather than that of the subject). For example: You shall regret it before long. (speaker's threat) You shall not pass! (speaker's command)
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.
For example, the inferred certainty sense of English must developed after the strong obligation sense; the probabilistic sense of should developed after the weak obligation sense; and the possibility senses of may and can developed later than the permission or ability sense. Two typical sequences of evolution of modal meanings are:
There are several variations of this sentence pattern, although they do not work as smoothly as the original. Dutch language shares this same example, with the noticeable difference of not capitalising the initials of nouns, making it "Als achter vliegen vliegen vliegen, vliegen vliegen vliegen achterna. "
An example for a non-European language with a similar encoding of modality is Manam. Here, a verb is prefixed by a morpheme which encodes number and person of the subject. These prefixes come in two versions, realis and irrealis. Which one is chosen depends on whether the verb refers to an actual past or present event (realis), or merely to a ...
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 ...
More generally, as complement of any of the modal verbs can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would (including would rather), and also dare and need in their modal uses: I can speak Swedish. Need you use so much flour? I dare say he will be back. As complement of the expression had better: You had better give back that telephone.
As for shall vs should, my (northwestern US) ears prefer shall but the difference is very slight. Shall focuses on your magnimony, and you may already be half-standing when you say it. Should focuses on your social obligation, and you may have no intention of opening the window unless the other person says "yes". --Sluggoster 09:28, 5 November ...