📄️ Modality: introduction
Modality is about a speaker’s or a writer’s attitude towards the world. A speaker or writer can express certainty, possibility, willingness, obligation, necessity and ability by using modal words and expressions.
📄️ Modality: forms
Modal verbs
📄️ Modality: meanings and uses
Modal meaning
📄️ Modality: other modal words and expressions
Other modal words
📄️ Modality: other verbs
Apart from the core modal verbs, some other common verbs express modal meaning.
📄️ Modality: tense
Modal verbs in past, present and future time
📄️ Modality: typical errors
We use the infinitive without to after modal verbs:
📄️ Can
Can: forms
📄️ Could
Could: form
📄️ Could, may and might
We use could, may and might to express degrees of possibility. Many native speakers disagree on which one expresses more or less certainty.
📄️ Dare
Dare is both a main verb and a semi-modal verb.
📄️ Had better
Had better: form and meaning
📄️ May
May: forms
📄️ Might
Might: forms
📄️ Must
Must: forms
📄️ Need
Need is a semi-modal verb because in some ways it is like a modal verb and in other ways like a main verb.
📄️ Ought to
Ought to is a semi-modal verb because it is in some ways like a modal verb and in some ways like a main verb. For example, unlike modal verbs, it is followed by to, but like modal verbs, it does not change form for person:
📄️ Shall
Shall: forms
📄️ Should
Should: forms
📄️ Used to
Used to: meaning and form
📄️ Will
Will: form
📄️ Would
Would: form