The document discusses variation in the verb phrase, specifically focusing on modal verbs and semi-modal verbs in English. It provides examples of the 9 main modal verbs - can, could, may, might, must, should, will, would, and shall - and how they are used to express meanings related to possibility, necessity, obligation, etc. It also discusses semi-modal verbs like have to, be going to, used to and their functions.

1. Variation in the Verb Phrase

2. MODALS
There are nine central modal verbs in English:
can, could, may, might, must, should, will, would and shall.
 They do not make inflections to show agreement or tense.
She can get it - Chris Brown
“If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all
wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.” Buddha
 They act as an auxiliary verb in verbs phrases.
Baby you can drive my car - The Beatles
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink - Proverb

3.  They precede the subject in yes-no questions.
Can you hear me, can you hear me / thro' the dark night, far away… - Sailing -
Rod Stewart
Can mike play soccer?
 They precede the negative particle in not negation.
I Cannot Believe It's True - Phil Collins
"You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs"- Proverb
 They take a bare infinitive verb as the main verb in the verb phrase.
He Can Work It Out- Dottie Peoples
If She Can Make It Here... – The City

4.  They express stance meanings, related to possibility,
necessity, obligation, etc.
In most dialects of English, only a single modal can be used
in a verb phrase.
However, certain regional dialects of English (such as
southern AmE) allow some combination of modals. In
standard English, it’s not grammatical(This construction is
also often stigmatized, which means you would want to be
especially careful before using it).
I might could do that. (=“ I might be able to do that.”)
I might should do that. (= "Maybe I should do that")

5. SEMI-MODALS
 Are multi word constructions that function like modal
verbs: (had) better, have to, (have) got to, ought to, be
supposed to, be going to, used to. In orthographic
representation of the spoken language, better, gotta
and gonna often occur as the reduced forms of had
better, have got to, and be going to.
 Semi-modals express meanings that usually can be
paraphrased with a central modal verb.

6. Tchau, I Have To Go Now
Tchau, I have to go now, I have to go now, tchau!
Tchau, I have to go now, I have to go now, tchau!
(Jammil e Uma Noites)
Instead of – I must go now
Everything you are not supposed to be – Damien
Rice
Instead of – Everything you should not be

7.  Some semi-modals are fixed expressions, which can
not be inflected for tense or person. However, some of
the semi-modals, like have to and be going to, can be
marked for tense and person.
 Past tense:
I had to live by myself
 Third-person agreement:
He has to live his life.

8.  Co-occurrence with a modal:
The patient seems to be getting worse. We might have
to call the doctor.
When serious accidents occur these doctors will often
have to perform complex operations.
 Co-occurrence with another semi-modal:
10 Things You Ought to Know About Going to School
(book)

9.  There are also some lexical verbs an adjectives that
have meanings similar to modal auxiliaries, in that
they express instance meanings, but they are neither
idiomatic nor fixed expressions. Rather, they express
their core lexical meanings of desire, obligation,
possibility, etc. Examples are : need to, dare to, want
to, be able to, be likely to.

11. LOGICAL POSSIBILITY
CAN
 Used in academic prose and conversation.
Chandler: I can handle this. "Handle" is my middle name. Actually, "handle" is
the middle of my first name.
Chandler: Can you see my nipples through this shirt?
Empathy: involves experiencing another person as a subject rather than just as
an object among objects. In doing so, one can experiences oneself as seen by
the Other, and the world in general.
(Husserl: Ideas : General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology)
 In some cases CAN is ambiguous and can be confused for ABILITY.
Rachel: Come on. You guys can pee standing up.

12. LOGICAL POSSIBILITY
MAY
 Used in academic prose. Rarely used in conversation.
Imagine all the people / Living life in peace / You may say
I’m a dreamer / But I’m not the only one
(Imagine, John Lennon)
(…) students realized how they are processing or failing to
process presented information and how their behavior is
influencing that processing - they may be more apt to self-
monitor.
(Classroom Assessment Techniques, Thomas A. Angelo &
K. Patricia Cross)

13. LOGICAL POSSIBILITY
MIGHT
 Used in academic prose and conversation.
Chandler: Condoms?
Joey: We don't know how long we're gonna be stuck here.
We might have to repopulate the world.
What I should like to do in this short article is to consider a
problem in the teaching of English which has come into
particular prominence over the past few
years, and to suggest a way in which it might be resolved.
(The teaching of English as communication, HG
Widdowson)

14. LOGICAL POSSIBILITY
COULD
 Used in academic prose and conversation.
Phoebe: We could eat the wax. It's organic.
Ross: Say something. Say anything. Nothing you say could
make this situation worse.
Smart'polymers and what they could do in biotechnology
and medicine, IY Galaev
* COULD shows a greatest degree of uncertainty.

15. PERMISSION
CAN/MAY
 CAN
Ross: Can I borrow your blue tie? Emma spit on mine.
 MAY (usually produced by parents and teachers
talking to children)
Phoebe: Hello, my name is Clunkers. May I please
stay with you nice people?

16. PERSONAL OBLIGATION
MUST
 Most common in academic prose.
In their full generality, Good's methods are
applicable to certain problems in which one
must multiply an JV-vector by an JV X N
matrix which can be factored into m sparse
matrices, where m is proportional to log JV.
(An Algorithm for the Machine Calculation of Complex
Fourier Series By James W. Cooley and John W. Tukey)

17. PERSONAL OBLIGATION
SHOULD/HAVE TO
 Most common in conversation (SHOULD and HAVE
TO are less threatening ways to express obligation).
Ross: Wow, you guys sure have a lot of books about
being a lesbian.
Susan: Well, you know, you have to take a course.
Otherwise they don't let you do it.
Joey: We might have to repopulate the world.
he world.

18. LOGICAL NECESSITY
MUST/SHOULD
 MUST (academic prose and conversation)
Monica: Wow. That's great. Dad must really like you, he
doesn't ask just anyone to play.
Chandler: Too many jokes. Must mock Joey.
 SHOULD (academic prose)
“If the crop is to be harvested by machinery, varieties
should be cultivated which do not readily shatter.”

19. VOLITION/PREDICTION
WILL/WOULD
 In conversation, the distinction between volition and
prediction is not always clear. VOLITION is usually
expressed with a first-person pronoun as
subject, while PREDICTION is expressed with other
subjects
* WOULD is more often hypothetical
*The combination of first-person subject + WOULD can
also express advice.

20. PREDICTION
WILL/WOULD
 Used in academic prose and conversation.
Phoebe: Hey, if we were in prison, you guys would be
like my bitches.
This implies that in order to influence behavior, we
have to expose people to information which will
produce changes in their beliefs. (Understanding
attitudes and predicting social behavior)

21. VOLITION (PERSONAL INTENTION)
WILL/WOULD
 Used in conversation.
Phoebe: Joey, if you had to give up sex or food, which
would you pick?

22. VOLITION (PERSONAL INTENTION)
BE GOING TO
 Used in conversation. Rare in academic prose.
Ross: We were on a break!
Chandler: Oh, my God! If you say that one more time,
I'm going to break up with you!
Chandler: Ok, I'm just going to go outside.

23. VOLITION (PERSONAL INTENTION)
SHALL
 Used in conversation (especially BrE) and academic prose.
Bessie Braddock: “Sir, you are drunk.”
Churchill: “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall
be sober.”
Dory: I shall call him 'Squishy,' and he shall be mine, and
he shall be my Squishy.
In this paper we shall present one method of overcoming
these dimensionality difficulties. (Dynamic programming and
Lagrange multipliers, R Bellman)

24. VOLITION (PERSONAL INTENTION)
SHALL
 Idea of offer or suggestion (used with I or We).
Shall we buy a new guitar?
Shall we drive a more powerful car?
Shall we work straight through the night?
Shall we get into fights?
(What shall we do now – Pink Floyd)

25. PAST HABITUAL BEHAVIOR OR PAST STATE
USED TO
 Used in conversation. Rare in academic prose.
Chandler: You wanna tell secrets? Okay. In
college, Ross used to wear leg warmers.
Phoebe: My mom used to stick her head in the oven.
Actually she only did it the once, but it was pretty
weird.

26. Different functions of USED TO
 As an adjective + preposition, meaning ‘accustomed to’ (conversation)
I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee
(Skyrim)
 As a passive lexical verb (used) followed by a to-clause (academic
prose)
Measurements of the momentum flux were made by the Reynolds flux
and dissipation methods on a deep water stable tower operated by the
Bedford Institute of Oceanography, A modified Gill propeller-vane
anemometer was used to measure the velocity. (Open ocean
momentum flux measurements in moderate to strong winds by W G
Large, S Pond )

27. MODALS COMBINED WITH
ASPECT OR VOICE
Modals cannot combine with tense, but they can
combine with ASPECT or VOICE.
 With Perfect Aspect (modal + have + participle)
 With Progressive Aspect (modal + be + ing)
 With Passive Voice (modal + be + participle)

28. WITH PERFECT ASPECT
 MUST and SHOULD : logical necessity (fiction, news, and conversation)
It must have been love but it's over now
It must have been good but I lost it somehow
(It must have been love, Roxette)
 Sometimes SHOULD + perfect aspect shows a past obligation (unfulfilled)
Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already
Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something
(http://youshouldhaveseenthis.com/)
 MAY and MIGHT : doubt about past events or situations
Joey: OK, I have no feelings for Rachel. No feelings at all. She's just a friend. I
mean, I might have had some feelings for her, but now they're all gone.

29. WITH PROGRESSIVE ASPECT
 WILL, MUST, and HAVE TO (conversation and
fictional dialog)
You have to be joking
They wouldn't do what you said
(You have to be joking, The Flaiming Lips)
 SHALL
“We shall be meeting with all parties in the near future.”

30. WITH PASSIVE VOICE
 CAN and COULD: to avoid identification of the agent of the
main verb – the possibility meaning is most common.
Ross: Should we all expect Christmas gifts that can be stolen
from your office?
 MUST and SHOULD: express collective obligation (academic
prose)
The Earth should have been hit with many more projectiles than
the moon as it has more surface area and larger gravity.
(Annihilation of ecosystems by large asteroid impacts on the early Earth, NH
Sleep, KJ Zahnle, JF Kasting0)