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Could One Imagine
The English modal auxiliary verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality, properties such as possibility and obligation. They can most easily be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participles or plain forms) and by their lack of the ending (''e'')''s'' for the third-person singular. The central English modal auxiliary verbs are ''can'' (with ''could''), ''may'' (with ''might''), ''shall'' (with ''should''), ''will'' (with ''would''), and ''must''. A few other verbs are usually also classed as modals: ''ought'', and (in certain uses) ''dare'', and ''need''. ''Use'' (, rhyming with "loose") is included as well. Other expressions, notably ''had better'', share some of their characteristics. Modal auxiliary verbs distinguished grammatically A list of what tend to be regarded as modal auxiliary verbs in Modern English, along with their inflected forms, is shown in the following table. Contractions are show ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
English Auxiliary Verbs
English auxiliary verbs are a small set of English verbs, which include the English modal auxiliary verbs and a few others. Although the Auxiliary verb, auxiliary verbs of English are widely believed to lack inherent semantic meaning and instead to modify the meaning of the verbs they accompany, they are nowadays classed by linguists as auxiliary on the basis not of semantic but of grammatical properties: among these, that they subject–auxiliary inversion, invert with their subjects in interrogative main clauses (''Has John arrived?'') and are negation (grammar), negated either by the simple addition of ''not'' (''He has not arrived'') or (with a very few exceptions) by negative inflection (''He hasn't arrived''). History of the concept When describing English, the adjective ''auxiliary'' was "formerly applied to any formative or subordinate elements of language, e.g. prefixes, English prepositions, prepositions." As applied to verbs, its conception was originally rather vag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |