Unless they’re part of your dialect (they’re not in mine), you won’t see or hear them often. Negative types occur too, such as this one in Joe Lansdale’s novel Captains Outrageous: ‘you could actually go some places you might not go, might not could afford to go.’ And then there are triple modals, like: ‘I might will can go tomorrow.’ This line appears in the excellent database MultiMo, short for multiple modal, a less common but more accurate term, since sometimes more than two modals are used (as with double negative and multiple negation).ĭouble modals are not part of standard English, which allows only one modal at a time. Different combinations will be more or less typical or acceptable for different users. The most common forms, at least in American English, are might could, might can, and might would, but many other pairs occur: might should, may can, should ought, must can, may will, and so on. Can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, must, ought, and dare are modal verbs ( aka modal auxiliaries, or just modals for short).
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