Modal verb

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A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a
likelihood, ability, permission, request, capacity, suggestion, order, obligation,
or advice. Modal verbs always accompany the base (infinitive) form of another verb
having semantic content.[1] In English, the modal verbs commonly used are can,
could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, ought to, used to, dare and must.

Contents
1 Function
2 In Germanic languages
2.1 English
2.1.1 Defectiveness
2.1.2 Do constructions
2.2 Comparison with other Germanic languages
2.2.1 Morphology and syntax
2.2.2 Less defective
3 In other languages
3.1 Hawaiian Pidgin
3.2 Hawaiian
3.3 French
3.4 Italian
3.5 Mandarin Chinese
3.6 Spanish
4 See also
5 References
6 Bibliography
7 External links
Function
A modal auxiliary verb gives information about the function of the main verb that
it governs. Modals have a wide variety of communicative functions, but these
functions can generally be related to a scale ranging from possibility ("may") to
necessity ("must"), in terms of one of the following types of modality:

epistemic modality, concerned with the theoretical possibility of propositions

being true or not true (including likelihood and certainty)
deontic modality, concerned with possibility and necessity in terms of freedom to
act (including permission and duty)
dynamic modality,[2] which may be distinguished from deontic modality in that, with
dynamic modality, the conditioning factors are internal – the subject's own ability
or willingness to act[3]
The following sentences illustrate epistemic and deontic uses of the English modal
verb must:

epistemic: You must be starving. ("I think it is almost a certainty that you are
starving.")
deontic: You must leave now. ("You are required to leave now.")
An ambiguous case is You must speak Spanish. The primary meaning would be the
deontic meaning ("You are required to speak Spanish.") but this may be intended
epistemically ("It is surely the case that you speak Spanish"). Epistemic modals
can be analyzed as raising verbs, while deontic modals can be analyzed as control
verbs.

Epistemic usages of modals tend to develop from deontic usages.[4] 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:

internal mental ability → internal ability → root possibility (internal or external

ability) → permission and epistemic possibility
obligation → probability
In Germanic languages
English
Main article: English modal verbs
The following table lists the modal auxiliary verbs of standard English and various
senses in which they are used:

Modal auxiliary Epistemic sense Deontic sense Dynamic sense

can That can indeed hinder. You can sing underwater. She can really sing.
could That could happen soon. – He could swim when he was young.
may That may be a problem. May I stay? –
might The weather might improve. – –
must It must be hot outside. Sam must go to school. –
shall This too shall pass. You shall not pass. –
should That should be surprising. You should stop that. I should like
that.
will She will try to lie. I will meet you later. –
would Nothing would accomplish that. – We would eat out on Sundays.
The verbs in this list all have the following characteristics:

They are auxiliary verbs, which means they allow subject-auxiliary inversion and
can take the negation not,
They convey functional meaning,
They are defective insofar as they cannot be inflected, nor do they appear in non-
finite form (i.e. not as infinitives, gerunds, or participles),
They are nevertheless always finite and thus appear as the root verb in their
clause, and
They subcategorize for an infinitive, i.e. they take an infinitive as their
complement
The verbs/expressions dare, ought to, had better, and need not behave like modal
auxiliaries to a large extent, although they are not productive (in linguistics,
the extent commonly or frequently used) in the role to the same extent as those
listed here. Furthermore, there are numerous other verbs that can be viewed as
modal verbs insofar as they clearly express modality in the same way that the verbs
in this list do, e.g. appear, have to, seem etc. In the strict sense, though, these
other verbs do not qualify as modal verbs in English because they do not allow
subject-auxiliary inversion, nor do they allow negation with not. Verbs such as be
able to and be about to allow subject-auxiliary inversion and do not require do-
support in negatives but these are rarely classified as modal verbs because they
inflect and are a modal construction involving the verb to be which itself is not a
modal verb. If, however, one defines modal verb entirely in terms of meaning
contribution, then these other verbs would also be modals and so the list here
would have to be greatly expanded.

Defectiveness
In English, modals form a very distinctive class of verbs. They are auxiliary verbs
as are be, do, and have, but unlike those three verbs, they are grammatically
defective. For example, have → has vs. should → *shoulds and do → did vs. may →
*mayed, etc. In clauses that contain two or more verbs, any modal that is present
always appears leftmost in the verb catena (chain). Thus, modal verbs are always
finite and, in terms of syntactic structure, the root of their containing clause.
The following dependency grammar trees illustrate this point:

Modal trees 1
The verb catenae are in blue. The modal auxiliary in both trees is the root of the
entire sentence. The verb that is immediately subordinate to the modal is always an
infinitive. The fact that modal auxiliaries in English are necessarily finite means
that within the minimal finite clause that contains them, they can never be
subordinate to another verb, e.g.,

a. Sam may have done his homework. The modal auxiliary may is the root of the
clause.
b. *Sam has may done his homework. Fails because the modal auxiliary may is not the
root of the clause.
a. Jim will be helped. The modal auxiliary will is the root of the clause.
b. *Jim is will be helped. Fails because the modal auxiliary will is not the root
of the clause.
Such limits in form (tense, etc.) and syntactic distribution of this class of verbs
are motivation of the designation defective. Other constructions are frequently
used for such a "missing" form in place of a modal, including "be able to" for can,
"have to" for must, and "be going to" for shall and will (designating the future).
It is of note that in this way, English modal auxiliaries are unlike modal verbs in
other closely related languages; see below.

Do constructions
See also: do-support
In English, main verbs but not modal verbs always require the auxiliary verb do to
form negations and questions, and do can be used with main verbs to form emphatic
affirmative statements. (Neither negations nor questions in early modern English
used to require do.) Since modal verbs are auxiliary verbs as is do, in questions
and negations they appear in the word order the same as do.

normal verb modal verb

affirmative he works he can work
negation he does not work he cannot work
emphatic he does work hard he can work hard
question does he work here? can he work at all?
negation + question does he not work here? can he not work at all?
Some form of auxiliary "do" occurs in all West Germanic languages except Afrikaans.
[5] Its occurrence in the Frisian languages is restricted to Saterland Frisian,
where it may be a loan from Low German.[6] In both German and Dutch, the
construction has been known since the Middle Ages and is common in dialects, but is
considered ungrammatical in the modern standard language.[7] The Duden lists the
following three potential uses of tun (to do) in modern German, with only the first
being considered standard:[8]

example English translation

verb topicalization Essen tue ich schon immer am Liebsten. To eat (stressed
topic of the sentence) I've always liked the most.
present/future auxiliary Ich tu bloß schnell die Blumen gießen. I'll just
quickly water the flowers
subjunctive auxiliary Das täte mich schon interessieren. That would certainly
interest me
Comparison with other Germanic languages
The English modal verbs share many features and often etymology with modal verbs in
other Germanic languages.

The table below lists some modal verbs with common roots in the West Germanic
languages English, German, Dutch, Low Saxon, West Frisian and Afrikaans, the North
Germanic languages Danish, Swedish and Faroese, and the extinct East Germanic
Gothic language. This list comprises cognates, which evolved from old Germanic
modal auxiliaries. It does not attempt to be complete for any one of the modern
languages, as some verbs have lost or gained modal character later in separate
languages. (English modal auxiliary verb provides an exhaustive list of modal verbs
in English, and German verb#Modal verbs provides a list for German, with
translations. Dutch verbs#Irregular verbs gives conjugations for some Dutch
modals.)

Words in the same row of the table below share the same etymological root. Because
of semantic drift, however, words in the same row may no longer be proper
translations of each other. For instance, the English and German verbs will are
completely different in meaning, and the German one has nothing to do with
constructing the future tense. These words are false friends.

In (modern) English, Afrikaans, Danish, and Swedish, the plural and singular forms
are identical. For German, Dutch, Low Saxon, West Frisian, Faroese and Gothic, both
a (not the) plural and a singular form of the verb are shown. Forms within
parentheses are obsolete, rare, and/or mainly dialectal in the modern languages.

Etymological relatives (not translations)

English German Dutch Low Saxon West Frisian Afrikaans Danish[9]

Swedish Faroese[10] Gothic[11]
can können, kann kunnen, kan könen, kann kinne, kin kan kan kan kunna,
kann kunnum, kann
shall sollen, soll zullen, zal schölen, schall sille, sil sal skal
ska(ll) skula, skal skulum, skal
will wollen, will willen, wil wüllen, will wolle, wol wil vil vill
vilja, vil wileima, wiljau[12]
(mote), must müssen, muss moeten, moet möten, mutt moatte, moat
moet måste måste ? -,gamōt
may mögen, mag mogen, mag mögen, mag meie, mei mag må (må) mega, má
magum, mag
(wit) wissen, weiß weten, weet ? witte, wit weet ved vet vita, veit
witum, wait
(tharf[13]) dürfen, darf durven, durf dörven, dörv doarre, doar
durf ? får ? þaúrbum, þarf
The English could is the preterite form of can; should is the preterite of shall;
might is the preterite of may; and must was originally the preterite form of mote.
(This is ignoring the use of "may" as a vestige of the subjunctive mood in
English.) These verbs have acquired an independent, present tense meaning. The
German verb möchten is sometimes taught as a vocabulary word and included in the
list of modal verbs, but it is actually the past subjunctive form of mögen.

The English verbs dare and need have both a modal use (he dare not do it), and a
non-modal use (he doesn't dare to do it). The Dutch, West Frisian, and Afrikaans
verbs durven, doarre, and durf are not considered modals (but they are there,
nevertheless) because their modal use has disappeared, but they have a non-modal
use analogous with the English dare. Some English modals consist of more than one
word, such as "had better" and "would rather".[14]

Owing to their modal characteristics, modal verbs are among a very select group of
verbs in Afrikaans that have a preterite form. Most verbs in Afrikaans only have a
present and a perfect form.

Some other English verbs express modality although they are not modal verbs because
they are not auxiliaries, including want, wish, hope, and like. All of these differ
from the modals in English (with the disputed exception of ought (to)) in that the
associated main verb takes its long infinitive form with the particle to rather
than its short form without to, and in that they are fully conjugated.

Morphology and syntax

Germanic modal verbs are preterite-present verbs, which means that their present
tense has the form of a vocalic preterite. This is the source of the vowel
alternation between singular and plural in German, Dutch, and Low Saxon. Because of
their preterite origins, modal verbs also lack the suffix (-s in modern English, -t
in German, Dutch, Low Saxon and West Frisian, -r in the North Germanic languages, -
þ in Gothic) that would normally mark the third person singular form. Afrikaans
verbs do not conjugate, and thus Afrikaans non-modal verbs do not have a suffix
either:

normal verb modal verb

English he works he can
German er arbeitet er kann
Dutch hij werkt hij kan
Low Saxon he warkt he kann
West Frisian hy wurket hy kin
Afrikaans hy werk hy kan
Danish han arbejder han kan
Swedish han arbetar han kan
Faroese hann arbeiðir hann kann
Gothic is waurkeiþ is kann
The main verb that is modified by the modal verb is in the infinitive form and is
not preceded by the word to (German: zu, Low Saxon to, Dutch and West Frisian te,
Afrikaans om te,). There are verbs that may seem somewhat similar in meaning to
modal verbs (e.g. like, want), but the construction with such verbs would be
different:

normal verb modal verb

English he tries to work he can work
German er versucht zu arbeiten er kann arbeiten
Dutch hij probeert te werken hij kan werken
Low Saxon he versöcht to warken he kann warken
West Frisian hy besiket te wurkje hy kin wurkje
Afrikaans hy probeer om te werk hy kan werk
Gothic is sokeiþ du waurkjan is kann waurkjan
Similarly, in North Germanic languages, the infinitive marker (at in Danish and
Faroese, att in Swedish) is not used for main verbs with modal auxiliaries: Han kan
arbejde, han kan arbeta, hann kann arbeiða (he can work). However, there also are
some other constructions where the infinitive marker need not be employed, as in
Swedish han försöker arbeta (he tries to work).

Less defective
In English, modal verbs are called defective verbs because of their incomplete
conjugation: They have a narrower range of functions than ordinary verbs. For
example, most have no infinitive or gerund.

In many Germanic languages, the modal verbs may be used in more functions than in
English. In German, for instance, modals can occur as non-finite verbs, which means
they can be subordinate to other verbs in verb catenae; they need not appear as the
clause root. In Swedish, some (but not all) modal verbs have infinitive forms. This
for instance enables catenae containing several modal auxiliaries. The modal verbs
are underlined in the following table.

Language Sentence
English he must be able to do it
German er muss das tun können
Swedish han måste kunna göra det
The Swedish sentence translated word by word would yield the impossible "*he must
can do it"; the same goes for the German one, except that German has a different
word order in such clauses, yielding "*he must it do can".
In other languages
Hawaiian Pidgin
Hawaiian Pidgin is a creole language most of whose vocabulary, but not grammar, is
drawn from English. 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.[15] The invariance of the modal auxiliaries to person, number,
and tense makes them analogous to modal auxiliaries in English. . However, as in
most creoles the main verbs are also invariant; the auxiliaries are distinguished
by their use in combination with (followed by) a main verb.

There are various preverbal modal auxiliaries: Kaen "can", laik "want to", gata
"have got to", haeftu "have to", baeta "had better", sapostu "am/is/are supposed
to". Unlike in Germanic languages, tense markers are used, albeit infrequently,
before modals: Gon kaen kam "is going to be able to come". Waz "was" can indicate
past tense before the future/volitional marker gon and the modal sapostu: Ai waz
gon lift weits "I was gonna lift weights"; Ai waz sapostu go "I was supposed to
go".

Hawaiian
Hawaiian, like the Polynesian languages generally, is an isolating language, so its
verbal grammar exclusively relies on unconjugated verbs. Thus, as with creoles,
there is no real distinction between modal auxiliaries and lexically modal main
verbs that are followed by another main verb. Hawaiian has an imperative indicated
by e + verb (or in the negative by mai + verb). Some examples of the treatment of
modality are as follows:[16]: 
pp. 38–39  Pono conveys obligation/necessity as in He
pono i nā kamali'i a pau e maka'ala, "It's right for children all to beware", "All
children should/must beware"; ability is conveyed by hiki as in Ua hiki i keia
kamali'i ke heluhelu "Has enabled to this child to read", "This child can read".

French
French, like some other Romance languages, does not have a grammatically distinct
class of modal auxiliary verbs; instead, it expresses modality using conjugated
verbs followed by infinitives: for example, pouvoir "to be able" (Je peux aller, "I
can go"), devoir "to have an obligation" (Je dois aller, "I must go"), and vouloir
"to want" (Je veux aller "I want to go").

Italian
Modal verbs in Italian form a distinct class (verbi modali or verbi servili).[17]
They can be easily recognized by the fact that they are the only group of verbs
that does not have a fixed auxiliary verb for forming the perfect, but they can
inherit it from the verb they accompany – Italian can have two different auxiliary
verbs for forming the perfect, avere ("to have"), and essere ("to be"). There are
in total four modal verbs in Italian: potere ("can"), volere ("want"), dovere
("must"), sapere ("to be able to"). Modal verbs in Italian are the only group of
verbs allowed to follow this particular behavior. When they do not accompany other
verbs, they all use avere ("to have") as a helping verb for forming the perfect.

For example, the helping verb for the perfect of potere ("can") is avere ("have"),
as in ho potuto (lit. "I-have been-able","I could"); nevertheless, when used
together with a verb that has as auxiliary essere ("be"), potere inherits the
auxiliary of the second verb. For example: ho visitato il castello (lit. "I-have
visited the castle") / ho potuto visitare il castello (lit. "I-have been-able to-
visit the castle","I could visit the castle"); but sono scappato (lit. "I-am
escaped", "I have escaped") / sono potuto scappare (lit. "I-am been-able to-
escape", "I could escape").

Note that, like in other Romance languages, there is no distinction between an

infinitive and a bare infinitive in Italian, hence modal verbs are not the only
group of verbs that accompanies an infinitive (where in English instead there would
be the form with "to" – see for example Ho preferito scappare ("I have preferred to
escape"). Thus, while in English a modal verb can be easily recognized by the sole
presence of a bare infinitive, there is no easy way to distinguish the four
traditional Italian modal verbs from other verbs, except the fact that the former
are the only verbs that do not have a fixed auxiliary verb for the perfect. For
this reason some grammars consider also the verbs osare ("to dare to"), preferire
("to refer to"), desiderare ("to desire to"), solere ("to use to") as modal verbs,
despite these always use avere as auxiliary verb for the perfect.[17]

Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin Chinese is an isolating language without inflections. As in English,
modality can be indicated either lexically, with main verbs such as yào "want"
followed by another main verb, or with auxiliary verbs. In Mandarin the auxiliary
verbs have six properties that distinguish them from main verbs:[18]: 
pp.173–174 

They must co-occur with a verb (or an understood verb).

They cannot be accompanied by aspect markers.
They cannot be modified by intensifiers such as "very".
They cannot be nominalized (used in phrases meaning, for example, "one who can")
They cannot occur before the subject.
They cannot take a direct object.
The complete list of modal auxiliary verbs[18]: 
pp.182–183  consists of

three meaning "should",

four meaning "be able to",
two meaning "have permission to",
one meaning "dare",
one meaning "be willing to",
four meaning "must" or "ought to", and
one meaning "will" or "know how to".
Spanish
Spanish, like French, uses fully conjugated verbs followed by infinitives. For
example, poder "to be able" (Puedo andar, "I can walk"), deber "to have an
obligation" (Debo andar, "I must walk"), and querer "to want" (Quiero andar "I want
to walk").

The correct use of andar in these examples would be reflexive. "Puedo andar" means
"I can walk", "Puedo irme" means "I can leave" or "I can take myself off/away". The
same applies to the other examples.

See also
English auxiliaries and contractions
German modal particle
Grammatical mood
Modal logic
References
Palmer, F. R., Mood and Modality, Cambridge University Presents, 2001, p. 33
A Short Overview of English Syntax (Rodney Huddleston), section 6.5d
Palmer, op. cit., p. 70. The subsequent text shows that the intended definitions
were transposed.
Bybee,Joan; Perkins, Revere; and Pagliuca, William. The Evolution of Grammar,
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1994, pp.192-199
Langer, Nils (2001). Linguistic Purism in Action: How auxiliary tun was
stigmatized in Early New High German. de Gruyter. p. 12. ISBN 9783110881103.
Langer, Nils (2001). Linguistic Purism in Action: How auxiliary tun was
stigmatized in Early New High German. de Gruyter. p. 14. ISBN 9783110881103.
Langer, Nils (2001). Linguistic Purism in Action: How auxiliary tun was
stigmatized in Early New High German. de Gruyter. p. 14. ISBN 9783110881103.
Langer, Nils (2001). Linguistic Purism in Action: How auxiliary tun was
stigmatized in Early New High German. de Gruyter. p. 7. ISBN 9783110881103.
The forms are given as in §85 and in §84 2 of Dansk grammatik (in Danish) by Niels
Nielsen, Gleerups förlag, 1959, but with modernised orthography.
The forms are given as in §77 and in §83 h) of An introduction to modern Faroese
by W. B. Lockwood, Thórshavn, 1977.
These first person forms are given as in §96 and in §101 of Germanische
Sprachwissenschaft, II. Formenlehre (in German) by Hans Krahe, Sammlung Göschen,
Band 780, 1942.
Krahe (op.cit., §101) treats this verb separately. He notes, that in Gothic the
endings are the usual ones for the optative preterite, and assumes that this
reflects the original situation. Later, he argues, in e.g. Anglo-Saxon, they were
replaced by the ordinary indicative preterite forms, under influence of the
preterite-present verbs proper.
Obsolete or dialectal, confused with and replaced by dare (OED, s.v. †tharf, thar,
v. and dare, v.1).
Ian Jacobs. English Modal Verbs. August 1995
Sakoda, Kent, and Jeff Siegel, Pidgin Grammar, Bess Press, 2003.
Alexander, W. D., Introduction to Hawaiian Grammar, Dover Publ., 2004
Verbi servili – Treccani
Li, Charles N., and Sandra A. Thomson, Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference
Grammar, 1989.
Modalverben

Bibliography
The Syntactic Evolution of Modal Verbs in the History of English
Walter W. Skeat, The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology (1993), Wordsworth
Editions Ltd.
{Expand section|date=May 2008}

External links
German Modal Verbs A grammar lesson covering the German modal verbs
(in Portuguese) Modal Verbs
Modal Verb Tutorial
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Lexical categories and their features