--- title: Modal verbs such as can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, shou… — Active and passive voice, modal verbs · tree and pragmatics description: Modal verbs such as can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should and must sit in front of another verb and change how sure, how able or how bossy a sentence is: "You must tidy up" orders, "You could tidy up" gently suggests. Who acts: Modal verbs, You. A sentence of the lesson «Active and pass --- [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/3/) [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/) / 3 # Active and passive voice, modal verbs, sentence 3 Modal verbs such as can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should and must sit in front of another verb and change how sure, how able or how bossy a sentence is: "You must tidy up" orders, "You could tidy up" gently suggests. **Who acts:** Modal verbs, You · **What happens:** sit, change, be, tidy up, suggest · **To what, where:** front, sentence, orders · **Speech:** someone speaks here 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, You), 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:3 # text = Modal verbs such as can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should and must sit in front of another verb and change how sure, how able or how bossy a sentence is: "You must tidy up" orders, "You could tidy up" gently suggests. # 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): R2-punct-next ×4, R6-punct-agree ×3, R7-rel-agree ×2 1 Modal modal ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 2 amod _ _ 2 verbs verb NOUN NNS Number=Plur 22 nsubj _ _ 3 such such ADJ JJ Degree=Pos|ExtPos=SCONJ 5 case _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=5:mark 4 as as ADP IN _ 3 fixed _ _ 5 can can AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 2 acl:relcl _ _ 6 , , PUNCT , _ 7 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=5:punct 7 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 5 conj _ _ 8 , , PUNCT , _ 9 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=7:punct 9 may may AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 7 conj _ _ 10 , , PUNCT , _ 9 punct _ _ 11 might might AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 9 conj _ _ 12 , , PUNCT , _ 13 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=7:punct 13 will will AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 7 conj _ _ 14 , , PUNCT , _ 7 punct _ _ 15 would would AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 5 conj _ _ 16 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=7:punct 17 shall shall AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 7 conj _ _ 18 , , PUNCT , _ 17 punct _ _ 19 should should AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 5 conj _ _ 20 and and CCONJ CC _ 21 cc _ _ 21 must must AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 19 conj _ _ 22 sit sit VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 0 root _ _ 23 in in ADP IN _ 24 case _ _ 24 front front NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 obl _ _ 25 of of ADP IN _ 27 case _ _ 26 another another DET DT PronType=Ind 27 det _ _ 27 verb verb NOUN NN Number=Sing 24 nmod _ _ 28 and and CCONJ CC _ 29 cc _ _ 29 change change VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 22 conj _ _ 30 how how ADV WRB PronType=Int 31 advmod _ _ 31 sure sure ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 29 ccomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=29:obj 32 , , PUNCT , _ 34 punct _ _ 33 how how ADV WRB PronType=Int 34 advmod _ _ 34 able able ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 22 parataxis _ _ 35 or or CCONJ CC _ 37 cc _ _ 36 how how ADV WRB PronType=Int 37 advmod _ _ 37 bossy bossy ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 34 conj _ _ 38 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 39 det _ _ 39 sentence sentence NOUN NN Number=Sing 34 conj _ _ 40 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 39 cop _ _ 41 : : PUNCT : _ 45 punct _ _ 42 " " PUNCT `` _ 45 punct _ _ 43 You you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 45 nsubj _ _ 44 must must AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 45 aux _ _ 45 tidy tidy VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 34 conj _ _ 46 up up ADP RP _ 45 compound:prt _ _ 47 " " PUNCT '' _ 45 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=48:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:``:_ 48 orders order NOUN NNS Number=Plur 45 obj _ _ 49 , , PUNCT , _ 48 punct _ _ 50 " " PUNCT `` _ 53 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=45:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:'':_ 51 You you PRON PRP Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs 53 nsubj _ _ 52 could could AUX MD VerbForm=Fin 53 aux _ _ 53 tidy tidy VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 45 conj _ _ 54 up up ADP RP _ 53 compound:prt _ _ 55 " " PUNCT '' _ 53 punct _ Agree=R6-punct-agree|Haiku=57:punct|HaikuPos=PUNCT:``:_ 56 gently gently ADV RB _ 57 advmod _ _ 57 suggests suggest VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 53 advcl _ _ 58 . . PUNCT . _ 22 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: none - polarity: none - teacher: changed voice=none | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **sit** | infinitive | Modal verbs | | | front of another verb | | | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in front=Location | | 2 | **change** | infinitive | Modal verbs *not said here* | | | | | | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 3 | **is a** | present | Modal verbs *not said here* | a sentence | | | | | tree rules | | 4 | **tidy up** *in a quote* | must | You | orders | | | | | tree rules | | 5 | **tidy up** *in a quote* | could | You | | | | | | tree rules | | 6 | **suggest** *speech: suggest* | present | You *not said here* | | | | | gently *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | 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:3`. **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): R2-punct-next ×4, R6-punct-agree ×3, R7-rel-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, 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/2/) - next →: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs, 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/4/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/)