English modal verbs

The modal verbs of English are a small class of auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality (properties such as possibility, obligation, etc.). They can be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participle or infinitive forms) and by the fact that they do not take the ending -(e)s in the third-person singular.

The principal English modal verbs are can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will and would. Certain other verbs are sometimes, but not always, classed as modals; these include ought, had better, and (in certain uses) dare and need. Verbs which share some but not all of the characteristics of the principal modals are sometimes called "semimodals".

Modal verbs and their features

The verbs customarily classed as modals in English have the following properties:

  • They do not inflect, except insofar as some of them come in present–past (present–preterite) pairs. They do not add the ending -(e)s in the third-person singular (the present-tense modals therefore follow the preterite-present paradigm).
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    This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/English_modal_verbs

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    We Shall

    by: Cya

    This ain't comin' from no prophet
    Just an ordinary man
    When I close my eyes I see
    The way this world shall be
    When we all walk hand in hand
    When the last child cries for a crust of bread
    When the last man dies for just words that he said
    When there's shelter over the poorest head
    We shall be free
    When the last thing we notice is the color of skin
    And the first thing we look for is the beauty within
    When the skies and the oceans are clean again
    Then we shall be free
    We shall be free
    We shall be free
    Stand straight, and walk proud
    'Cause we shall be free
    When we're free to love anyone we choose
    When this world's big enough for all different views
    When we all can worship from our own kind of pew
    Then we shall be free
    We shall be free
    We shall be free
    Have a little faith
    Hold out
    'Cause we shall be free
    And when money talks for the very last time
    And nobody walks a step behind
    When there's only one race and that's mankind
    Then we shall be free
    We shall be free
    We shall be free
    Stand straight, walk proud, have a little faith, hold out
    We shall be free
    We shall be free
    We shall be free
    Stand straight, stand straight, have a little faith, walk proud
    We shall be free
    We shall be free
    We shall be free
    Stand straight, walk proud




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