--- title: Modal verbs (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, mus… — Active and passive voice, modal verbs · tree and pragmatics description: Modal verbs (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must) help a main verb and show certainty, ability, permission or duty. Who acts: Modal verbs. A sentence of the lesson «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/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/) / [Active and passive voice, modal verbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/) / 13 # Active and passive voice, modal verbs, sentence 13 Modal verbs (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must) help a main verb and show certainty, ability, permission or duty. **Who acts:** Modal verbs · **What happens:** help, show · **To what, where:** main verb, certainty This is a sentence of the lesson «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» 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), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:english:032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.lesson:13 # text = Modal verbs (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must) help a main verb and show certainty, ability, permission or duty. # source = school lesson (ours) # course = english # lesson = 032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.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): R1-cc-next ×1, R2-punct-next ×4, R6-punct-agree ×2 1 Modal modal ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ _ 2 verbs verb NOUN NNS Number=Plur 22 nsubj _ _ 3 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 4 punct _ _ 4 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 2 appos _ _ 5 , , PUNCT , _ 4 punct _ _ 6 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 4 conj _ _ 7 , , PUNCT , _ 6 punct _ _ 8 may may AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 9 , , PUNCT , _ 10 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=8:punct 10 might might AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 8 conj _ _ 11 , , PUNCT , _ 12 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=6:punct 12 will will AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 13 , , PUNCT , _ 14 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=6:punct 14 would would AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 15 , , PUNCT , _ 16 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=14:punct 16 shall shall AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 17 , , PUNCT , _ 18 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=6:punct 18 should should AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 19 , , PUNCT , _ 20 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=18:punct 20 must must AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 6 conj _ _ 21 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 6 punct _ _ 22 help help VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 23 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 25 det _ _ 24 main main ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 25 amod _ _ 25 verb verb NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 obj _ _ 26 and and CCONJ CC _ 27 cc _ Agree=R1-cc-next|Haiku=22:cc 27 show show VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 22 conj _ _ 28 certainty certainty NOUN NN Number=Sing 27 obj _ _ 29 , , PUNCT , _ 30 punct _ _ 30 ability ability NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 conj _ _ 31 , , PUNCT , _ 32 punct _ _ 32 permission permission NOUN NN Number=Sing 30 appos _ _ 33 or or CCONJ CC _ 34 cc _ _ 34 duty duty NOUN NN Number=Sing 32 conj _ _ 35 . . PUNCT . _ 22 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **help** | infinitive | Modal verbs | a main verb | | | | | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent verb=Beneficiary | | 2 | **show** | infinitive | Modal verbs *not said here* | certainty and ability | | | | | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent certainty=Recipient | 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:032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.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): R1-cc-next ×1, R2-punct-next ×4, R6-punct-agree ×2. **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: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/12/) - next →: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs, 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/14/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/)