Talk:Modal verb

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The redirection of "Modal Verb" to the Grammatical Mood page is erroneous. It was correct prior to this edit when it was being redirected to the Modal Auxiliary Verb page.

The Modal Auxiliary Verb page needs to be greatly expanded. The comment on this erroneous edit is "to eliminate a double redirection". The Modal Auxiliary Verb page is so small that it was thought to be nothing more than a redirection to the Grammatical Mood page.

Modal verb should not redirect to English modal auxiliary verb because other languages have modal verbs. peace – ishwar  (speak) 08:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The page is now about Germanic modal verbs in general, with an emphasis on syntax. I find conflicting information about whether the terminology 'modal verb' is applicable to non-Germanic languages. That question should be settled by someone who can read grammar books in those languages, rather than English text about them. --Syboor 17:12, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please, check this.

In the German page, it states "Das Deutsche kennt sechs Modalverben: wollen, müssen, können, mögen, sollen und dürfen." So, why are here listed others, like brauchen or wagen?

The German page is right and this page is wrong. It used to be right. It seems that somebody decided to turn the German list into a translation of the English list, rather than a list of German words with the same etymological roots. 'werden', 'brauchen' and 'wagen' are not modal verbs, so don't belong here. I'll change it back and see if I can clarify things (even) better, but I think the person who made this change was clearly in error (because the article already stated that the list does not provide translations). Syboor 23:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Not only are those not modal verbs but the English translations of many of the correct modal verbs are horribly wrong. Sollen is more correctly translated as should, wollen is to want (werden is will), mögen is to like and dürfen is may or to be allowed to. Need is most definitely not a modal verb in German and I don't believe is considered a modal in English by many people any more.

Yes, translations are tricky. Is there some page about it that we could link to? I'm not sure from your comment whether you agree with the current list on this page. BTW, the page English modal auxiliary verb has a longer discussion about whether or not 'need' is modal; you're right that it never is in German. Syboor 09:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the "translations" are not wrong, because they are not translations :P . Etymologically, words in the same row share common roots. So, because of that is that we have things like sollen=shall. --Pfc432 11:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)