Verbs take a few endings such as ed for the past (started), but they do not take endings for person, except in the third person singular of the present tense (it starts). Articles (. the), Possessives (. my) and adjectives (. good) do not have endings for number or gender. Pronouns (. lime) have fewer forms than in many languages. | 12 MODAL VERBS PAGE 12 Here could means a more distant possibility than can and so is less direct more tentative. May is rather formal. NOTE We can also use might to ask permission but it is both formal and tentative. I was wondering if I might borrow your car for the afternoon. 3 Talking about permission a We sometimes talk about permission when we are not giving it or asking for it. To do this we can use can referring to the present or the future and could referring to the past. I can stay up as late as I like. My parents don t mind. These yellow lines mean thatyou can t park here. At one time anyone could go and live in the USA. We cannot use may here because we are not giving or asking permission. NOT I may stay up late. b We can also use be allowed to. I m allowed to stay up as late as I like. Was Tina allowed to leave work early You won t be allowed to take photos. Be allowed to means that the permission does not depend on the speaker or the person spoken to. Compare these two sentences. May we leave early please Will you allow it Are we allowed to leave early Is it allowed What is the rule c We use be allowed to not can or may in the perfect and the infinitive. Newspapers have not been allowed to report what is going on. I didn t expect to be allowed to look round thefactory. d In the past we make a difference between general permission and permission which resulted in an action. For general permission we use could or was were allowed to. Years ago visitors to Stonehenge could go were allowed to go right up to the stones. For an action that someone did with permission we use was were allowed to. The five students were allowed to go right up to the stones. 95 Certainty will must and can ft 1 We can use these verbs to say that something is certainly true or untrue. There s someone at the door. It ll be the milkman. You got up at four o clock Well you must be tired. This can t be Roland s textbook. He doesn t do physics. Will expresses a prediction. It means .
