The English modal auxiliary verbs are The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

• will and would
• shall and should
• may and might
• can and could
• must
• ought to

Modal auxiliary verbs help other verbs express a meaning or an idea but have no meaning by themselves. In English, modal auxiliary verbs are defective; for example, they do not have participle forms (no -ing or -ed endings). The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A defective verb is a verb with an incomplete conjugation. ... In linguistics, a participle is an adjective derived from a verb. ...

They are used in a variety of grammatical moods such as the conditional mood, which expresses uncertainty ("I would be delighted if you came to my party"). In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... The conditional tense (sometimes described as the conditional mood) is a verb form in many languages, in which a verb root is modified to form verb tenses, moods, or aspects expressing degrees of certainty or uncertainty and hypothesis about past, present, or future. ...

For more information, see the page on auxiliary verbs. In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb whose function it is to give further semantic information about the main verb which follows it. ...