Are there other verbs that work like “dare” and “need”? [duplicate]

Question

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• “need to do” vs “need do” 4 answers

The verbs dare and need do not require auxiliaries when used in the interrogative; for example, “need I?” is as acceptable as “do I need?”

Excluding the auxiliaries themselves (like be, do, have), are there any other such verbs that work that way?

Answer 1

No, not in the same way, but then need and dare are both a little different, anyway.

Need and dare have several peculiarities:

• They take infinitive complements, like many other verbs, in the affirmative and negative
  He wanted to read it. He didn't want to read it.
  She needs to see them. She doesn't need to see them.
  He dared to contradict them. He didn't dare to contradict them.
• In negative environments only (and questions are negative environments), need and dare can behave in the peculiar syntactic ways that modal auxiliaries behave in all environments
  (in other words, this "semi-modal" property of need and dare is a Negative Polarity Item)

The syntactic peculiarities of modal verbs include the following:

1. Modals take infinitives without to.
   He may go. *He may to go.
   He may not go. *He may not to go.
   He dare not go. *He dare not to go. He need not attend. *He need not to attend.*
2. Modals are not inflected for person, tense, or number (no -s present or -ed past).
   He might (not) go. *He mights (not) go.
   They must (not) pay attention to this. *They musted (not) pay attention to that.
   *She need not consider it further. *She needs not consider it further.
3. Modals must be the first auxiliary verb in a verb phrase, because they have no inflected forms.
   He can do that. *He shouldn't can do that.
   He can't do that. *He should can't do that.
4. Modals usually have idiomatic inflectable paraphrases:
   can : be able to; will : be going to /gənə/; must : have to /hæftə/; should : ought to /ɔɾə/
   (for the semimodals the inflectable paraphrases are simply need : need to; dare : dare to)

So, no, there really aren't any more semimodal verbs in English. But there are lots of individual irregularities among verbs. When you look at the details, you find that every verb is different from every other verb in some syntactic ways.

Answer 2

Occasionally, people still express questions in this form:

"What say you to a nice cabernet?"

"What think you of our impetuous young friend?"

These aren't standard constructions, however, and their very stiltedness imparts a note of amusement or irony to the question. No such sense attaches to, for example, "How dare you speak to me like that?" or "Need I say more?"

But the first two examples I gave also have this difference from the second two: They don't appear in tandem with a following verb. The expressions "dare...speak" and "need...say" are thus operating in a different way from "say to [this]" or "think of [that]."

A genuinely archaic example of such a construction (from Ezekiel 34:18 in the 1611 King James Bible) involves "seemeth":

"Seemeth it a small thing vnto you, to haue eaten vp the good pasture, but ye must tread downe with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to haue drunke of the deepe waters, but yee must fonle the residue with your feete?"

Answer 3

All modals act this way, and though 'dare' and 'need' aren't usually modal, they can act that way. Should, will, would, can, could, may, might, must, ought (yes, I left out 'shall', a bit too old-fashioned).

Should I answer this question?

or

Dare I answer this question?

are perfectly fine (the former is very everyday; the latter is a bit 1950's sounding and wouldn't be commonly used nowadays).

Need I answer this question?

is questionable to me. I don't think it sounds right, but I do figure that others might (again maybe from the 1950's).