User:Gwalla/modal verb

In linguistics, a type of auxiliary verb that expresses modality. In English, modal verbs are a specific class of verbs that express modality and share certain syntactic features. The English modals are must, may, can, and shall. Will is also sometimes considered a modal in English, since it behaves similarly, although in modern English it expresses future tense and not modality.

The most noticeable feature of English modal verbs that sets them apart from most other auxiliaries is that they always take a bare infinitive rather than a "to" infinitive. They are also distinguished by the following syntactic features:

• Negation - "I couldn't come!"
• Inversion - "Could you come?" instead of "Come you?" the modal may invert with the subject
• Code - "You could come, couldn't you?"
• Emphatic affirmation - "I could come!" (if I want to) to stress the modal