Yesterday and today, we had a brief discussion about modal auxiliaries in class. Modals are different from auxiliaries like "do, does, did." The latter has only grammatical function, helping to form questions or negative sentences. Modals carry the meaning of "obligation" or "possibility/certainty." Take the following three sentences for example.
John must be tired.
John may be tired.
John might be tired.
Different modals are used to express how sure we are of what we say.
To help students get a clearer idea of modals, I made two handouts. One is a list of common modals, with their meanings/functions; the other a list of common functions of modals, with modals connected to the functions. They are not the final versions, still leaving some space for improvement.
modals-functions-b4.doc
Functions-modals-A4.doc
沒有留言:
張貼留言