--- title: Modal verbs (might, could, should, must, will) show how sure, able o… — Tense consistency and verb forms · tree and pragmatics description: Modal verbs (might, could, should, must, will) show how sure, able or obliged someone is; in school grammar they are helping verbs, not tenses. Who acts: Modal verbs, words. A sentence of the lesson «Tense consistency and verb forms» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its dependency --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/31-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms/13/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / [Tense consistency and verb forms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/31-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms/) / 13 # Tense consistency and verb forms, sentence 13 Modal verbs (might, could, should, must, will) show how sure, able or obliged someone is; in school grammar they are helping verbs, not tenses. **Who acts:** Modal verbs, words · **What happens:** show, be, oblige, help · **To what, where:** someone, verbs, school grammar · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Tense consistency and verb forms» of the english course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Modal verbs, words), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:english:031-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms.lesson:13 # text = Modal verbs (might, could, should, must, will) show how sure, able or obliged someone is; in school grammar they are helping verbs, not tenses. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = english # lesson = 031-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms.lesson # annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 Modal modal ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ _ 2 verbs verb NOUN NNS Number=Plur 14 nsubj _ _ 3 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 4 punct _ _ 4 might might AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 5 , , PUNCT , _ 4 punct _ _ 6 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 7 , , PUNCT , _ 6 punct _ _ 8 should should AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 9 , , PUNCT , _ 8 punct _ _ 10 must must AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 11 , , PUNCT , _ 12 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=6:punct 12 will will AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 2 conj _ _ 13 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 12 punct _ _ 14 show show VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=0:root|HaikuPos=VERB:VBP:Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 15 how how ADV WRB PronType=Int 16 advmod _ _ 16 sure sure ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 14 ccomp _ _ 17 , , PUNCT , _ 18 punct _ _ 18 able able ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 16 conj _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=16:ccomp 19 or or CCONJ CC _ 20 cc _ _ 20 obliged oblige VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 16 conj _ _ 21 someone someone PRON NN Number=Sing|PronType=Ind 20 obj _ _ 22 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 16 cop _ _ 23 ; ; PUNCT : _ 29 punct _ _ 24 in in ADP IN _ 26 case _ _ 25 school school NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 compound _ _ 26 grammar grammar NOUN NN Number=Sing 29 obl _ _ 27 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 29 nsubj _ _ 28 are be AUX VBP Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 29 aux _ _ 29 helping help VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 14 conj _ _ 30 verbs verb NOUN NNS Number=Plur 29 obj _ _ 31 , , PUNCT , _ 33 punct _ _ 32 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 33 advmod _ _ 33 tenses tense NOUN NNS Number=Plur 30 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=29:obl 34 . . PUNCT . _ 14 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **show** | infinitive | Modal verbs | | | | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 2 | **is** | present | | | | | | sure *property* | tree rules | | 3 | **be** | | | | | | | | tree rules | | 4 | **oblige** | participle | | someone | | | | | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent someone=Patient | | 5 | **help** | present · progressive | words *= word* | verbs and tenses | | school grammar | | | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent verb=Beneficiary | One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree. **Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:english:031-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms.lesson:13`. **The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R5-strong ×1, R6-punct-agree ×1, R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence. See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/). - ← previous: [Tense consistency and verb forms, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/31-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms/12/) - next →: [Tense consistency and verb forms, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/31-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms/14/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/31-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms/)