By Modals, Auxiliaries

Thank you to all those who have posted their suggestions to my little imagination game. Some have taken it very seriously thinking they would have to relearn English after the 'changes'. This was meant to be just a game, not for those wo take everything seriously, and of course in this game...

After carefully reading all the posts again and the article mentioned by CJ, I conclude that operators are all those verbs (all auxiliaries main verbs and modals) that allow subject verb inversion. So to define operators we can say that;An operator could be a verb that acts as main verb in a...

I am usually at home in the morning -- 'am' here is a finite operator. Modals are the operators when they occur as the first verb of a finite or non-finite verb phrase. He can not have gone -- 'can have gone' -- this is a non-finite verb phrase. 'can is the operator The main verb be and...

Milky wrote:<The easy one first: #3 is wrong; two modal auxiliaries cannot co-occur.> Where are the two modal auxiliaries there?Guess MM's talking about the 2 woulds: 3) If you would have arrived sooner, you would have missed the train. Anyway, one can't normally have would in...

<The easy one first: #3 is wrong; two modal auxiliaries cannot co-occur.> Where are the two modal auxiliaries there?

The easy one first: #3 is wrong; two modal auxiliaries cannot co-occur. Change to: if you had arrived sooner, you would have missed the train. (By the way, the meaning seems odd; I would have thought: if you had arrived later, you would have missed the train.Now, #1 and #2: This one...

I would regard the advice on that website as guidelines, not fixed rules. But whatever the case, the most natural position of adverbs of frequency is what that site calls the "middle position", i.e., after the "operator" if there is one (a form of to be, a modal, an auxiliary do or...

CalifJim wrote:My understanding is that would is always a modal verb and always an auxiliary verb, so I'm not sure I understand the question. would is the backshifted form both of will and of would, if that's what you mean.I think that this will be the best choice.I thought that this would be...

My understanding is that would is always a modal verb and always an auxiliary verb, so I'm not sure I understand the question. would is the backshifted form both of will and of would, if that's what you mean. I think that this will be the best choice. I thought that this would be the best...

Suppose we have the following sentence "I think that a direct object would be the best choise in this case". Can i transfer it into the past with "would" remaining its modal meaning, not the past of "will". I mean, if i write " I thought that direct object would be the best choise in this...