Modal Verbs and Grabby Anglophones

Here's a curious example of how English can be difficult to a foreigner in a way native speakers may not even consider.

"I have..."

(You have what?)

"I have got..."

(You have got what?)

"I have got to get..."

(You have got to get what?)

"I have got to get going..."

(Oh.)

"...if I am going to get..."

(Get WHAT?)

"I have got to get going if I am going to get there."

(Well, go, then! And don't forget to get...um...whatever it is you were going to get.)

There it is at the end: one sentence with what seems like four possible instances of possession or obtaining something, all of which come to naught, In the end, this is just a sentence expressing an urgency to, say, meet someone somewhere or perhaps get to a station before a train leaves. It has nothing to do with procuring a single thing.

Modal Verbs

This construction—have got to—is a unique type of verb called a modal verb, of which there are nine in English. (For the record: five present forms—can, may, must/have to/have got to, shall, and will—and four past forms—could, might, should, and would.) These verbs all express varying degrees of expectation or obligation in reference to something. Modal verbs are not exclusive to English; they appear in other European languages, both Germanic (like German, Dutch, and most Scandinavian languages) and Romance (including Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian).

Modal verbs are somewhat slippery. They aren't verbs that can stand alone without another verb accompanying them. For example, the sentence "I may my car" makes no sense without the verb "drive." But "I drive my car" does make sense. It's almost as if modal verbs are more like adverbs.

They also elude simple description according to tense. Of the four "past" forms of modal verbs—could, might, should, and would—none really express something that happened in the past...not, at least, without "have" and some other past tense verb after it, as in "I could have had a V8." Ironically, these mostly lean toward the future. For example, if you should do something, you're not doing it right now, and you haven't done it in the past. There's an expectation that you will do it. (Hey...notice that present tense modal verb in there...practically expressing a future tense!)

Grabby Anglophones

Incidentally, does this shed some light on a certain personality trait that English speakers might have? It's amusing to consider whether Anglophones are as grabby and avaricious as this construction—especially in the sentence above—makes us out to be. According to quick translations in Google, the Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, and German expressions for constructions ranging from "I have to go" to "I have got to get going" are mostly the same. (Only German has a slight variant: "Ich muss los" for "I have got to get going," while "Ich muss gehen" works for "I have to go." Again, this is only according to Google; German speakers are welcome to weigh in with their take!) It doesn't seem that those who speak these languages are as...uh...grabby, I guess.

Or are they? In Spanish, the phrase tener que represents the modal verb "have to"; the Spanish verb tener also means "to have." Quite literally, the Spanish sentence Tengo que irme means "I have to go." So hey...maybe English speakers and Spanish speakers share at least a bit of "grabbiness"!

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Image by Alexa from Pixabay.