Replacements For Defective Forms
As noted above, English modal verbs are defective in that they do not have infinitive, participle, imperative or (standard) subjunctive forms, and in some cases past forms. However in many cases there exist equivalent expressions that carry the same meaning as the modal, and can be used to supply the missing forms. In particular:
- The modals can and could, in their meanings expressing ability, can be replaced by am/is/are able to and was/were able to. Additional forms can thus be supplied: the infinitive (to) be able to, the subjunctive and (rarely) imperative be able to, and the participles being able to and been able to.
- The modal must in most meanings can be replaced by have/has to. This supplies the past and past participle form had to, and other forms (to) have to, having to.
- When will or shall expresses the future, the expression am/is/are going to has similar meaning. This can supply other forms: was/were going to, (to) be going to, being/been going to.
- The modals should and ought to might be replaced by am/is/are supposed to, thus supplying the forms was/were supposed to, (to) be supposed to, being/been supposed to.
Read more about this topic: English Modal Verbs
Famous quotes containing the words replacements, defective and/or forms:
“The replacements are all like that. Not even old enough to carry a pack. All they know how to do is die.”
—Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)
“A defective voice will always preclude an artist from achieving the complete development of his art, however intelligent he may be.... The voice is an instrument which the artist must learn to use with suppleness and sureness, as if it were a limb.”
—Sarah Bernhardt (1845–1923)
“All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory—of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)