Of the republic of uzbekistan termiz state university faculty of foreign philology

Syntactical Can modal verbs form a separate member of the sentence?

Modal verbs as distinct from notional verbs cannot form a separate part of the sentence — a simple verbal predicate. They always combine with a notional verb to form a compound modal verbal predicate or with a link-verb and a predicative to form a compound modal nominal predicate.

 A compound modal verbal predicate:

I can go there.

I must have done something wrong

He should be waiting for you at home.

A compound modal nominal predicate:

I can be very happy here.

He ought to become more serious.

 With the verbs “can”, “may”, “must”, “should”, “shall”, “will”, “would” the infinitive of the notional verb is used without the particle “to”. With the verbs “ought”, “be”, “have” the infinitive of the notional verb is used with the particle “to”. He can (may, must, should,etc.) gothere.

but: He ought (is, has) to gothere.

The verbs “need” and “dare” combine with the infinitive either with or without the particle “to”.