Imagine trying to speak without expressing possibility, permission,or necessity; it would be like painting without colour. That’s were the modal verb step in. These special helping verbs—can, could, ...

Modal verbs are easy to spot because there are so few of them. In addition to must, shall, will, should, would, can, could, may and might, we can add ought to and have to. If we are told that we 'must ...

This article seeks to explore some of those problems considered in my earlier publication which remain relevant to future work on Old English modal verbs and their subsequent history. I propose to ...

Willem Hollmann is affiliated with the Committee for Linguistics in Education (CLiE) and with the Education Committee of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain (LAGB). Do you know what a suffix ...

Picture a small child saying: "Can’t, shan’t, won’t!" They are using modal verbs to show their feelings and attitude to something. Maybe they are refusing to go to bed or eat their peas. Modal verbs ...