Re: THEORY: Auxiliaries

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> English auxiliaries are clearly becoming mood and
> aspect prefixes
I can't agree with you there.  They are by no means prefixes, as seen
in such dialogues as this:

        Shall I run down to the store for that?
        Would you?  That would be great.
        I will.  Will you need anything else?
        No.

> (the fact that they are losing accent and that their "past"
> forms slowly lose their past meanings and become separate modals is a clear
> sign. The last one is clear with the pair "can-could" where the past form is
> clearly losing its past status to become a separate modal indicating a smaller
> probability than "can". This step is far from finished though :)) ).
As for the separation of historic present and preterit forms into separate
modal verbs, I would say that it is tolerably complete, except for the
"sequence of tenses" rule whereby

        I want to go if I can

becomes in the past tense

        I wanted to have gone if I could (have).

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