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MODAL AUXILIARY

The modal auxiliaries (or modals) include the following: can, could, may, might, must, should, will, would. Modals are always followed by the base form of a verb or auxiliary verb. Modals are always the same form no matter what the subject is.In standard American English, a predicate verb phrase cannot contain more than one modal. auxiliary verbs such as will, shall, may, might, can, could, must, ought to, should, would, used to, need are used in conjunction with main verbs to express shades of time and mood. The combination of helping verbs with main verbs creates what are called verb phrases or verb strings .

• They did write that novel together.
• He was winning the election.
• They have been writing that novel for a long time.

Shall and will

Shall is used in many of the same senses as will , though not all dialects use shall productively, and those that use both shall and will generally draw a distinction (though different dialects tend to draw different distinctions). In prescriptive English usage, shall in the first person, singular or plural, indicates mere futurity, but in other persons shows an order, command or prophecy: “Cinderella, you shall go to the ballIt is, therefore, impossible to make shall questions in these persons. Shall we? makes sense, shall you? does not. Conversely, in prescriptive usage will generally indicates futurity in the second and third persons but modality of willingness/determination in the first person.

Example will :

• I’ll wash the dishes if you dry.
• We’re going to the movies. Will you join us?

In the United States, we seldom use shall for anything other than polite questions (suggesting an element of permission) in the first-person:

• “Shall we go now?”
• “Shall I call a doctor for you?”

Should

Should is commonly used, even in dialects where shall is not. The negation is “should not” (or the contraction “shouldn’t”). Should can describe an ideal behaviour or occurrence and imparts a normative meaning to the sentence; for example, “You should never lie” means roughly, “If you always behaved perfectly, you would never lie”, so obligatory modality is being expressed. The sentence “If this works, you should not feel a thing” means roughly, “I hope this will work. If it does, you will not feel a thing”, so probabilistic modality is being expressed.

Example :

• You really shouldn’t do that.
• If you think that was amazing, you should have seen it last night.

Would

The contracted form of would is ‘d as in “I’d go if I could”. The negation is either would not or wouldn’t . As indicated above, would can be used for the conditional mood in main clauses: “I would go if I could”. Would can be used in some forms that are viewed as more formal or polite: for example, “I would like a glass of water” compared with “I want a glass of water”; and “Would you get me a glass of water?” dibandingkan dengan telanjang “Ambilkan aku segelas air.” compared with the bare “Get me a glass of water.” “In the sentence “Back then, I would eat early and would walk to school….” ““would” signifies not the conditional mood , but rather, repeated past actions in the imperfective aspect (specifically, habitual aspect) and one must use care when translating to other languages.

Example :

• Would you please take off your hat?
• After work, he would walk to his home in West Hartford.
• She would cause the whole family to be late, every time.

May and might

May and might do not have common negative contractions (equivalents to shan’t , won’t , can’t , couldn’t etc.), although mightn’t can occur in asking questions. (”Mightn’t I come in if I took my muddy boots off?” as a reply to “Don’t come in here! You’ll get the floor dirty!”) Both forms can be used to express a present time possibility or uncertainty (”That may be.”). Might and could can also be used in this sense with no past time meaning. Might and may would carry almost the same meaning in “John is not in the office today, and he could be sick”, although may conveys less hesitance (a somewhat higher probability) than do might and could . “ May is also used to express irrelevance in spite of certain or likely truth: “He may be taller than I am, but he is certainly not stronger” may mean roughly, “While it is true that he is taller than I am, that does not make a difference, as he is certainly not stronger.” (However, it may also mean, “I am not sure whether he is taller than I am, but I am sure that he is not stronger.”) This is the meaning in the phrase “Be that as it may.” Might can be used in this sense as well. May or might can be used in the first person to express that future actions are being considered. “I may/might go to the mall later” means that the speaker is thinking about going to the mall; as such it means the same thing as maybe will .

Example may :

• May I leave class early?
• If I’ve finished all my work and I’m really quiet, might I leave early?

Example might :

• She might be my advisor next semester.
• She may be my advisor next semester.
• She might have advised me not to take biology.

Can and could

The negation of can is the single word “cannot”, occasionally written as two words “can not” or the contraction “can’t”. The negation of could is “could not”, or “couldn’t”. Can is used to express ability. “I can speak English” means “I am able to speak English”, or “I know how to speak English”. It is also used to express that some state of affairs is possible, without referring to the ability of a person to do something: “There can be a very strong rivalry between siblings” can have the same meaning as “There is sometimes a very strong rivalry between siblings”. “He cannot have left already; why would he want to get there so early.expresses with less certainty the same proposition as “He has not left already” does. The form could can indicate either the modality of ability in the preterite (past) (= was able to ) (”I could swim when I was five years old”), the modality of permission in the past (= was permitted to ) (”My mother said that I could go swimming”), the modality of possibility in the present (= maybe ) (”It could be raining now”), or conditional modality in the present (= would be able to ) (”I could do it if you would let me”).

The modal auxiliary can is used

• to express ability (in the sense of being able to do something or knowing how to do something):
  He can speak Spanish but he can’t write it very well.
• to expression permission (in the sense of being allowed or permitted to do something):
  Can I talk to my friends in the library waiting room?
• to express theoretical possibility:
  American automobile makers can make better cars if they think there’s a profit in it.

The modal auxiliary could is used

• to express an ability in the past:
  I could always beat you at tennis when we were kids.
• to express past or future permission:
  Could I bury my cat in your back yard?
• to express present possibility:
  We could always spend the afternoon just sitting around talking.
• to express possibility or ability in contingent circumstances:
  If he studied harder, he could pass this course.

Must

Must has no corresponding preterite form. The negation is “must not” or “mustn’t”. An archaic variant is the word mote , as used in the expression “so mote it be”. Must and have to are used to express that something is obligatory (”He must leave”; “He has to leave”). Must can be used to express a prohibition such as “You must not smoke in here”, or a resolution such as “I mustn’t make that mistake again”. There is a distinction between “must” and “have to” in the negative forms: “must not” negates the main verb, while “do not have to” negates “have to”. In the sentence “You must not go” = “You must not-go”, it is being expressed that it is obligatory for the person being spoken to not go; whereas in the sentence “You do not have to go” it is being expressed that it is not obligatory for the person to go.

Ought to and had better

Ought to and had better are used to express an ideal behavior or occurrence or suggested obligation, in a similar way to should . The negations are, respectively, ought not to (or rarely, oughtn’t to ) and had better not . In informal American usage, the had in had better is sometimes omitted..” The negative forms negate the main verb: “You ought not to do that” = “You ought to refrain from doing that”; “You’d better not do that” = “You’d better refrain from doing that.” In addition, ought to , like should , can be used to express relatively high probability, as in “It ought to rain today.”

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