re: The World May Never Eradicate ... page 4

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Consider this sentence, please:

1) The world may never eradicate coronavirus, but it could get it under control.

2) The world may never eradicate coronavirus, but it might get it under control.

What is the difference between 1) and 2)?

In general, What's the difference between "might" and "could" when it comes to talking about a possibility?

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Comments  (Page 4) 
Rizan MalikSo the difference of opinion is because some might consider the sentence: "If you don't hurry, you could miss the train" a first conditional, by looking at the paraphrase for "could" here, namely: "maybe you will" and others might consider it a mixed conditional just because it uses "could", which is normally considered "unreal/hypothetical". Is this what you mean?

Yes.

The modals, when classified only by form, divide into two groups.

"present": can, will, shall, may, must
"past": could, would, should, might

You can just robotically determine the conditional type by these forms, or you can get into the semantics of each modal verb and do a lot of head-scratching and arguing.

CJ

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