You can, if you are allowed. || She can really sing. |- | could || That could happen soon. || – || He could swim when he was young. |- | may || That may be a problem. || May I stay? || – |- | might || The weather might improve. || Might I help you? || – |- | must || It must be hot outside. || Sam must go to school. || – |- | shall || This shall not be viewed kindly. || You shall not pass. || – |- | should || That should be surprising. || You should stop that. || – |- | will || She will try to lie. || – || – |- | would || Nothing would accomplish that. || – || – |} The verbs in this list all have the following characteristics: They are auxiliary verbs, which means they allow subject-auxiliary inversion and can take the negation not, They convey functional meaning, They are defective insofar as they cannot be inflected, nor do they appear in non-finite form (i.e. not as infinitives, gerunds, or participles), They are nevertheless always finite and thus appear as the root verb in their clause, and They subcategorize for an infinitive, i.e. they take an infinitive as their complement The verbs/expressions dare, ought to, had better, and need not behave like modal auxiliaries to a large extent, although they are not productive (in linguistics, the extent commonly or frequently used) in the role to the same extent as those listed here. Furthermore, there are numerous other verbs that can be viewed as modal verbs insofar as they clearly express modality in the same way that the verbs in this list do, e.g. appear, have to, seem etc. In the strict sense, though, these other verbs do not qualify as modal verbs in English because they do not allow subject-auxiliary inversion, nor do they allow negation with not. Verbs such as be able to and be about to allow subject-auxiliary inversion and do not require do-support in negatives but these are rarely classified as modal verbs because they inflect and are a modal construction involving the verb to be which itself is not a modal verb. If, however, one defines modal verb entirely in terms of meaning contribution, then these other verbs would also be modals and so the list here would have to