ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with quite a long, but very necessary, discussion of some general issues, and then deals with the modals of possibility and necessity, may, can, must, need and ought to. It then deals with will and shall and the related issues of future time reference and conditionals. The modal verbs have three main functions, which will be called 'epistemic', 'deontic' and 'dynamic'. It is important to add that the modality/proposition distinction is not wholly in a one-to-one relationship with the distinction between the modal auxiliary and the main verb. The issue of passivation is far from clear and simple. With epistemic modals past tense can be marked only in reported speech, where there would appear to be deictic shift. In the chapter there will also be an account of the 'semi-modals', be bound to, be able to, have to, be going to and be willing to.
