Features of Modal Auxiliaries
Modal auxiliaries are as follows:
CAN, COULD, MAY, MIGHT, WILL, WOULD, SHALL, SHOULD, MUST
Characteristic features:
(1) They are always (finite1) verbs.
Table 1
The classification of ‘verbs’ according their morphology (Budai 1986:21)
VERBS
FULL VERBS
AUXILIARY VERBS
Finites
Non-Finites
Anomalous2 Finites
Present Tense
V-ø and V-s
Past Tense
V-ed
Imperative Mood form
V-ø
Infinitives
am, is, are, was, were
have, has, had
do, does, did,
used (to),
SHALL, WILL, SHOULD,
WOULD, CAN, COULD,
MAY, MIGHT, MUST,
ought (to), need, dare
1
Gerunds
Participles
Present Participle
Past Participle
(1) Verbs proper, which have tenses and refer to numbers and persons.
(2) A finite verb form is capable of forming the negative by adding –n’t and of expressing questions by
inversion. (Chalker and Weiner 1998:26)
2
‘different from what is normal, regular or expected’ (OALD8)
The parts of speech in the sentence:
He might have been being questioned by the police.
Noun
being
Definite Article
been
Preposition
have
questioned by
the
police.
Past Participle
might
Present Participle (of
auxiliary of passive
voice)
Bare Infitive (of
auxitliary of perfectivity)
He
Past Participle (of
auxiliary expressing
continuous aspect
Verb proper
(modal auxiliary
The analysis of a sentence
Personal Pronoun
Table 2
(2) They can only be operators from a syntactic point of view. (The first auxiliary
of the verb phrase.)
Table 3
Sentence structure analysed in the traditional way (Biber [et al.] 1999 and Quirk [et al.] 1985)
SENTENCE
SUBJECT
PREDICATE
AUXILIARY/AUXILIARIES
AUX 1
PREDICATION
AUX 2
AUX 3
AUX 4
have
been
being
OPERATOR
He
might
questioned by the police.
(3) They have neither to-infinitive nor bare infinitive nor –ing forms.
(4) They have no –s forms.
(5) They are always followed by a bare infinitive.
(6) They help to construct inversion (questions/interrogation and special syntactic
constructions) and negation.
(7) They turn up in short questions, question tags and answers.
(8) They have contracted forms (-n’t), except for may.
(9) Meaning: Modal verbs pertain to our experience of actuality, possibility, and
necessity. (Gibbs 1994:159) It can have a deontic function.
(10)
The indication of mood is limited, it is only the indicative and
subjunctive mood forms which can be used.
(11)
They can only denote present tense except for reported speech.
Sources:
Biber [et al.] 1999
Biber, Douglas [et al.]. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow : Longman, 1999. xxviii, 1204
p. ; 24 cm
ISBN 0-582-23725-4
Budai 1986
Budai László. English syntax : theory and practice. 2. kiad. Budapest : Tankönyvkiadó, 1986. 640 p. : ill. ; 20
cm (Tanuljunk nyelveket!, ISSN 0133-1094) ISBN 963-17-9558-6
Chalker and Weiner 1998
Chalker, Sylvia and Weiner, Edmund. The Oxford dictionary of English grammar. Reissued with corrections.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1998, © 1994. x, 448 p. ; … cm (Oxford paperback reference, ISSN ---)
ISBN 0-19-280087-6
Gibbs 1994
Gibbs, Raymond W. The poetics of mind : figurative thought, language, and understanding. Cambridge :
Cambridge University Press, 1994. ix, 527 p. ; 22.6 cm
ISBN 0-521-42992-7 ppb
OALD8
Hornby, A[lbert] S[idney]. Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary of current English. 8th edition. Managing editor
Joanna Turnbull. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. xii, 1796, 32, 64, 46 p. : ill. ; … cm
ISBN 978-0-19-479902-7
Quirk [et al.] 1985
Quirk, Randolph [et al.]. A grammar of contemporary English. 11th impression. Harlow : Longman, 1985. xii,
1120 p. ; 23.5 cm
ISBN 0-582-52444-x