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Modal Verbs For Speculation

modal verbs for speculations

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Cristina Celia
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166 views18 pages

Modal Verbs For Speculation

modal verbs for speculations

Uploaded by

Cristina Celia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Modal Verbs

May Might Could

Must Couldn’t
Modals are different from normal
verbs:

1: They don't use an 's' for the third


person singular.
2: They make questions by inversion
('she can go' becomes 'can she go?').
3: They are followed directly by the
infinitive of another verb (without 'to').
To speculate about things in the past…

1. To talk about things we think are certain:

MUST + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE

COULDN’T + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE


2. To talk about things we think are possible…

MAY + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE

MIGHT + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE

COULD + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE


To speculate about things in the past:
• we use must or couldn’t + have + past
participle to talk about things we think
are certain.

• we use may, might, or could + have +


past participle to talk about things we
think are possible
Must have
We can use modal verbs for deduction – guessing if
something is true using the available information.
The modal verb we choose shows how certain we
are about the possibility.

We use must have + past participle


when we feel sure about what happened.
Someone must have broken
into the safe!
1. Who told the newspapers about the president’s
plans?
It must have been someone close to him.

2. The thief must have had a key. The door was


locked and nothing was broken.

3. I don’t have my keys – I must have left them in


the kitchen.
Use “couldn’t have” for negative
certainty in the past.
If we are certain something was
impossible or did not happen in
the past we must use the past
modal verb “couldn’t have,”

because “mustn’t have” cannot


be used with this meaning.
Might / Could have
We can use might have + past participle when
we think it's possible that something happened.

• I think I might have left the air conditioning on.


Please can you check?
• Police think the suspect might have left the
country using a fake passport.
Could have is also possible in this context.

We use could have + past participle when we


want to make a guess about something that
happened in the past.

In this case, we don't know if what we're


saying is true or not true. We're just talking
about our opinion of what maybe happened.
Why is John late?
He could have got stuck in traffic.
He could have forgotten that we were
meeting today.
He could have overslept.
Essentially, all modals can be used in the past
by adding “have + past participle,” however,
their meaning and function often change:

•May / Might have = speculating in the past


•Could have = capability in the past
•Should have= criticism / recommendation in
the past
•Would have= past possibilities and their
(unreal) consequences
For example, see how the following past
modals change the meaning of the sentence
below:

• I may/might have talked to John…


[but not sure]
• I could have talked to John… [was able in the
past but probably no longer able now]
• I should have talked to John…
[but didn’t, criticising]
Video class
https://youtu.be/F77VRovtEKk?si=Atfst3ZDNt12Mm31
Song
It Must Have Been Love – Roxette
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2C5TjS2sh4
When I Was Your Man – Bruno Mars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WgP_NzXdd8
Movie
P.s. There are also famous scenes from movies that use past
modal structures too,
do you recognize movie in this clip?
https://youtu.be/iBSLBl-64fk?t=38

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