Dear all
A sage moderator has asked me to re-post this here, rather than in the English Only forum where I first tried:
There must be previous threads on this, but I have been unable to find them.
One of the rare relics in modern English of the A-S conjugational system is that of the 3rd-person singular of regular verbs ("she earns...", "he shows" &c.).
Why do then these modal verbs (and others, such as "will") defy the general principle? And why does "need" need "needs" when it is positive ("He needs to go...") and not when not ("He need not go...")?
Σ
A sage moderator has asked me to re-post this here, rather than in the English Only forum where I first tried:
There must be previous threads on this, but I have been unable to find them.
One of the rare relics in modern English of the A-S conjugational system is that of the 3rd-person singular of regular verbs ("she earns...", "he shows" &c.).
Why do then these modal verbs (and others, such as "will") defy the general principle? And why does "need" need "needs" when it is positive ("He needs to go...") and not when not ("He need not go...")?
Σ