By Modal verbs, Dialects

Julielai wrote: Just out of curiosity, Mr. P, how do you distinguish a native speaker who's learned a non-standard form of English from a decent non-native speaker? (e.g. How can you tell if a speaker born in India, Singapore or other Asian countries is native?) Hello Julie I'm not sure I...

Have to, on the other hand, does not have a strong deontic role. On the bare surface of it I take it as totally crazy (in AmE)! And yet, Deontically, must obliges the subject of the sentence to do something (you must be home before 9 o’clock). Have to, on the other hand, does not...

Hello td I'm not an expert or a student of linguistics. But we've had a few discussions about modals on this forum, and I've noticed three things: 1. Speakers of different dialects seem to respond differently to the same modal verb. 2. People's sense of 'tense' in modals seems to vary. I find...

Hello Milky I'm happy to accept your adjustment – I used 'you go' in my original because it would have seemed strange to define phrase A by embedding it in phrase B. So now we have: 1. Given my perception of the immediate situation, it is inevitable that you will go. 2. You will go. Now I...

Hello Inanc I see I have not quite answered your original question. What I really wanted to know was how would C refer to A's present state at T2. To my ears, your option 1 seems to meet the criteria: 1. He can't have done that! I would read this, in context, as: 'it's not possible that MrA...

Paco: I'm sorry if I mistook your message. Many of people here (including me) are still beginners of English learning. So it is nice if you write in a way everybody can't misunderstand you. One reason why we ESL feel auxiliary/modals difficult to learn is their usage has been rapidly...

JTT wrote: You couldn't have done more than glanced at the box "May/might", at the 'commnet' site, Mr P. If you had, you'd have noticed the glaring inconsistencies that show "that different people DO NOT hear conditional and modal verbs slightly differently. No need for all caps, JTT. Please use...

Thanks for the links, Casi. Very interesting. It wouldn't surprise me if there were something in what you say about dialect variation. Previous threads have shown that different people hear conditional and modal verbs slightly differently. And it's no advantage to MrX to feel 'pastness' in...