This is a variant of that and v.v.

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milky

#299523 Fri, 01 Dec 06 11:52 AM

It true that some native English speakers would consider the following sentence as grammatical.

"I might could be persuaded to try that."

But, could we say that "I could be persuaded to try that" is a variation/variant form of that sentence, and v.v.?

milky

Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004

Senior Member (3,149)

Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

nona the brit

#299544 Fri, 01 Dec 06 12:54 PM

I wouldn't consider 'might could' grammatical.

nona the brit

Joined on Wed, Sep 22 2004

England

Veteran Member (11,340)

The name says it all.

milky

#299547 Fri, 01 Dec 06 12:59 PM

Nona The Brit wrote:
I wouldn't consider 'might could' grammatical.

If it's not of your variant, I understand, but it is grammatical for some other native speakers.

milky

Inchoateknowledge

#299605 Fri, 01 Dec 06 03:27 PM

Hello Milky

To my personal knowledge, double modal constructions are not grammatical.

A modal may not follow another modal.

Inchoateknowledge

Joined on Wed, May 3 2006

Senior Member (2,528)

Beep! Beep! :)

Constructions, Modals

Alienvoord

#299609 Fri, 01 Dec 06 03:38 PM

"I might could be persuaded to try that."

Which dialect is this grammatical in?

Alienvoord

Joined on Tue, Jul 25 2006

Toronto

Full Member (315)

I'm a Canadian English speaker

Dialects

milky

#299613 Fri, 01 Dec 06 03:46 PM

Inchoateknowledge wrote:

Hello Milky

To my personal knowledge, double modal constructions are not grammatical.

A modal may not follow another modal.

In which variant/s?

milky

Constructions, Modals

Anonymous

#299615 Fri, 01 Dec 06 03:52 PM

http://home.bluemarble.net/~langmin/miniatures/doublemodal.htm

/km

Anonymous

Modals

milky

#299616 Fri, 01 Dec 06 03:53 PM

Alienvoord wrote:
"I might could be persuaded to try that."

Which dialect is this grammatical in?

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001120

Take a look here:

2.4 Modal stacking

The complement of a modal cannot be a Finite verb, as there is no room in INFL for a

second instance of Finite/Deixis. This explains why standard English, which has no nonÔnite

forms of modals in its lexicon, does not allow modals to be "stacked" as in (40b).

However, German and some non-standard dialects of English do allow stacking.

.....

"In stacking dialects of English, the infnitive forms of modals are generally phonologically identical with the present or past

finite forms. For example, in the sentences in (43) (taken from Di Paolo 1989: 195), can, should, and oughta function as infnitives.

(43) a. We might can go up there next Saturday.

b. This thing here I might should turn over to Ann.

c. Well, once we get under way, it shouldn't oughta take us very long.

Since the present and past forms of English modals have been diverging in their lexical semantics, it is not entirely surprising to observe that they are treated as uninflected forms of separate verbs in some dialects.

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~danhall/hall.generals.2001.pdf