Re: USAGE: double modals (was Re: negativity)

<delurk>

Tom Weir wrote:

<<
Where's your wife from? Double modals such as this are actually
pretty rare in Texas, compared to the rest of the South, since much
of Texas was settled by people from the lower Midwest.  I myself
don't use it, and don't recall ever hearing another Texan use it,
but the more I think about it, the more it makes practical sense to
me:  three syllables less than "I might be able to have".
 >>

A colleague of mine down here (a Texan) is writing her first major
paper on double modals.  She says it's rather common, as do the
two other Texans in our department.  I recently checked a form with
her that I heard on TV: "You might should oughtta have..."  It was
on a cartoon--the Justice League Unlimited, of all things.  It was
supposed to be taking place in the future.  I wonder if the writers
were conscious of this, and were trying to suggest that double
modals will become common in the future...

-David
</delurk>