• The modal auxiliaries in English are: can, could, had better, may, might, must, ought to, shall, should, will, and would.
  

For many speakers of English as a second or foreign language, modals can be quite confusing. For one thing, they express a speaker’s attitudes, or “moods.” As we all know, you need to have a high emotional and social I.Q. to be able to understand someone’s attitudes or moods in your own language let alone in a second or foreign language. For example, modals not only express that a speaker feels something is necessary, advisable, permissible, possible or probable, but they also convey the strength of these attitudes. Moreover, each modal has more than one meaning and use which further complicates the matter for students of English.

• Virtually all modals can express both logical probability and social interaction.

Understanding the context of a social situation allows you to select the appropriate modal. Let’s use the social context of a meeting. You walk into a conference room full of potential clients and announce that “the meeting may begin now”; you are granting the people in the room permission to begin the meeting. You, therefore, need to be a fairly important person in your organization to be able to grant them permission. Furthermore, the meeting is a formal one; otherwise, you would have used can instead of may for granting permission. In contrast, let’s consider another scenario. Your boss asks you when a certain report will be ready. You answer him that you’ll do your best and that “it may be ready tomorrow”; knowledge of the social situation has little or no effect on the modal you use. What you want to communicate to your boss is that the probability of the report being ready the following day is relatively low.

• The following are some key facts relating to auxiliary modals and phrasal modals:

*Modals never change their form and do not show tense; they do not take a final -ed, -ing or -s.

Correct——–He can type.    He must have been sick.      I might be leaving soon.

Incorrect——*He cans type.        *He musted been sick.     *I mighting leave soon.

*Modals carry the negative of a sentence by adding not or n’t :

Correct——You shouldn’t smoke in the office.

Incorrect—-*You don’t should smoke in the office.

*We don’t use the infinitive to after a modal which is required when two ordinary verbs follow each other in sequence. Instead, a modal is followed immediately by the simple form of a verb.

Modal + Verb                                                Verb + Verb

Correct—- I can go.                                    I want to go.

Incorrect— *I can to go.                               * I want go.

*Every modal has at least one phrasal counterpart, and some modals have several; notice that the phrasal modals are made up of two or more words:

Modal                                                               Phrasal Modal

Can, could                                                       be able to

Will, shall                                                    be going to, be about to

Must                                                                have to, have got to

Should, ought to                                        be to, be supposed to

Would (=past habit)                                         used to

May, might                                               be allowed to, be permitted to

*The subject-verb agreement rule does not apply to modal auxiliaries but does apply to phrasal modals (except for used to). Furthermore, all phrasal modals require that a ‘to‘ infinitive precede the main verb.

She

• is able to

• is going to

• is allowed to                      go to Jerusalem tomorrow.

• has to

• has got to

• Below is a chart of modals expressing various degrees of probability, attitude, politeness or indirectness when making predictions or requests, and giving advice.

• Sites that can help you further your study of English modals:

http://esl.about.com/od/beginningenglish/ig/Basic-English/Modal-Forms.htm

http://waylink.co.uk/?page=3132

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/auxiliary.htm

http://www.englishpage.com/modals/modalintro.html