on of the main verb that follows it. Although having a great variety of communicative functions, these functions can all be related to a scale ranging from possibility (can) to necessity (must). Within this scale there are two functional divisions: concerned with possibility and necessity in terms of freedom to act (including ability, permission and duty), and the other (shall not included) concerns itself with the theoretical possibility of propositions being true or not true , including likelihood and certainty: = absolute (often moral) obligation, order, requirement, necessity; can/could = physical or mental ability; may/might = permission, option, choice; will = intention in 1st person, volition in 2nd and 3rd persons; and shall/should = in 1st person objective though not moral obligation, no choice, as in: One day I shall die: we all shall die one day; in 2nd and third persons shall implies an incumbent obligation, destiny (It shall come to pass) or a command, decree, necessity imposed by the speaker, as in: A meeting shall take place on the last Friday of every month or a promise, namely that the speaker is stating his obligation to another party that an action or event take place, as in: You shall go to the ball, Cinderella. However, if a speaker states: I will let you go to the ball, Cinderella, in stating his intention, he is, in this instance, also making a promise.modal auxiliary verbs have two distinct interpretations, epistemic (expressing how certain the factual status of the embedded proposition is) and deontic (involving notions of permission and obligation). The following sentences illustrate the two uses of must :: You must be starving. (= "It is necessarily the case that you are starving."): You must leave now. (= "You are required to leave now."): You must speak Spanish. = "It is surely the case that you speak Spanish (eg, after having lived in Spain for ten years)." = " It is a requirement that you speak Spanish (eg, if you want to get a job in Spain). "modals can be analyzed as raising verbs, while deontic modals can be analyzed as control verbs.form of modal auxiliary is the verb indicating ability: "can" in English, "kцnnen" in German, and "possum" in Latin.
Example: "I can say that in English"
"Ich kann das auf Deutsch sagen"
"Illud Latine dicere possum.", the use of the modal auxiliary verbs varies in positive and negative statements. For example, in English, we have the sentence pair, "You may do that," and "You may not do that." However, in German, these ideas are expressed as "Sie dьrfen das tun," ; but "Sie mьssen das nicht tun." The latter looks as if it would translate into English as "You must not do that," but it is more typically translated as "You may not do that." table lists some modal verbs with common roots in English, German and Dutch. English modal auxiliary verb provides an ...
