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6.5.1: Modals of Obligation and Prohibition

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    Grammar Focus - Modals of Obligation and Prohibition

    Picture-no-smoking.png

    Modals of obligation are used to talk about permission and prohibition.

    Modal Verbs

    Modal verb

    Explanation

    must

    obligations (often personal obligations)

    must not

    prohibited, forbidden

    have to

    obligations (often external obligations)

    had to

    past obligations

    have got to

    obligations

    don't have to

    not required, optional

    should

    recommended, advised

    shouldn't

    not recommended, not advised

    In most situations must and have to are interchangeable. We often use must when we refer to personal obligations (I must go now because it's late). We often use have to to talk about external obligations which are not our choice (You have to pay taxes). However you are more likely to see must used on signs and in formal situations.

    Have (to), a semi-modal, expresses necessity (strong advisability). However, it is unlike other modals in its use of do as an auxiliary and its use of an infinitive complement. Negating the modal results in a different meaning from negating the infinitive phrase..

    · All of the modal verbs remain the same in the 3rd person (i.e. I must, You must, He/She must) except for have to (3rd person is has to).

    · All of the modal verbs are followed by a verb in the infinitive (I shouldn't smoke)

    · The past tense of must is had to. The past tense of have to is also had to.

    Have to is never contracted. "I have to go to work" NOT "I've to go to work"

    WikipediaText English for B2 students Grammar • Unit 10 is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

    You can find the source here: https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=English_for_B2_Students/Unit_10&veaction=edit&section=3


    6.5.1: Modals of Obligation and Prohibition is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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