In Modals^x, Inflections^x

Alright, so modals are not inflected... That should mean they are non finite. How come they do not work in nonfinte contexts such as infinitive clauses then? If you argue that the form of the verb is what marks an inflection, how do you explain that put is the past form of put? No inflection...

Very true, Aeolus29. There are only two tense inflections in English - the "s" for the present (only for third person singular), and the "ed" for the past. In this sense there are only two tenses. All the other verbal machinery of English depends on combining auxiliaries and/or modals with the...

There are English lexifier creoles in which one can talk about one "tools." The "'s" is no longer an inflectional morpheme. Such is the case here, in my opinion. If one would like to assert the right to have "tense" mean whatever they should like it to mean, then I don't suppose there is much...

could you please show me an inflected modal. Well, aside from MrP's "could", there's She has to go. (Present) She had to go. (Past) But then again, the kind of "inflection" we're concerned about in this discussion is temporal in nature, and not morphological in form. That is, if it's not...

It's interesting that the central modals can be grouped into related pairs that sometimes distinguish between past and non-past time. My thinking was just that, though they are related, they are not a single modal that's being inflected for tense. So, if they can refer to time, how does that...

"Linguists reserve the technical term "tense" for true inflection, . . . . . . I'm one, so yeah, I know. Cacarr, have you had a chance to read the article? Putting terminology aside, what is it about the distribution of modals that permits a change in time that's seemingly separate in function...

"Linguists reserve the technical term "tense" for true inflection, i.e, one that produces a real change in a single word, as in Latin or Spanish, which are inflectional languages and have a lot of tenses, all encompassed paradigmatically. English really has only two actual tenses: present...

Do you mean that the modals can mark a temporal category? Is that category "syntactic tense?" Even so, I don't see how you can "inflect" a modal for anything. Inflection is morphological. Can you provide me with an example of an inflected modal aux. ? Are you saying that the differences in form...

That's interesting, equivical. What is the nature of the inflection? Tense is a morphological thing: Smoke -Present Tense Smoked -Past Tense Will smoke = future time. See that the verb is without an affix of any kind? There is no future tense in English. We use a modal to refer to future...

Dear Cacarr, modals can be inflected for tense but only syntactic tense. I'd be interested in seeing some of those "inflections", equivocal.