Saturday, July 21, 2007

English modal auxiliary verb

n the English language, a modal auxiliary verb is an auxiliary verb (or helping verb) that can modify the grammatical mood (or mode) of a verb. The key way to identify a modal auxiliary is by its defectiveness; the modal auxiliaries do not have participles or infinitives.

The modal auxiliaries are as follows:

* will and would
* shall and should
* may and might
* can and could
* must and have to
* ought to and had better
* in more archaic use, dare and need
* by some accounts, do

Each of these is treated here separately.

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