Timeline for Is “might could” a correct construct?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
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| Jun 15, 2020 at 7:40 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Nov 22, 2019 at 21:10 | comment | added | Warren P | Oh look a rational human being answered. This answer is great because it's data driven, aims at objectivity, and eschews subjectivity and cultural bias. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 0:45 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @tchrist Exactly. The need that is used here is the non-modal one that both inflects for 3sg and has an infinitive (and past participle)—which is hardly surprising, given that the modal need is limited to negated (including limited) and interrogative clauses (“He needn't do that” and “Need he do this?”, but *“He need do this”). | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 0:41 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | @JanusBahsJacquet I don’t know. Something that takes a to-infinitive isn’t a modal in my book. Given modal-need example like He need do nothing to prove himself, then a double-modal would be he might need do nothing — which I’d be really surprised to hear anyone say, but I don’t spend much time in Scotland or Appalachia, so I’m not real judge. | |
| Oct 1, 2014 at 0:23 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | I wonder why your source apparently claims that might need to is a double modal. It's not: need is a perfectly common, non-modal verb here, with an infinitive. So no, of course that doesn't clang in anybody's ears, any more than “might think” or “might floccinaucinihilipilificate”. Similarly, might’ve used to could only clang in anyone's ears because used to is rarely used in the perfect and may be ungrammatical as such to some (“I've always used to do this”?). | |
| Sep 12, 2014 at 4:33 | history | edited | James Waldby - jwpat7 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
fix 1 spelling
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| Dec 29, 2012 at 0:18 | history | edited | tchrist♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 3 characters in body
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| Jun 10, 2012 at 15:27 | comment | added | Elberich Schneider | I vote +1, as I promised. :) | |
| Jun 10, 2012 at 15:18 | history | answered | tchrist♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |