Portuguese modal verbs

This file defines the six modal forms of Ferreira's square of necessities as auxiliaries. The possibility modal poder, the weak necessity modal dever and the strong necessity modal ter que each appear in the present, pode, deve and tem que, and in the past imperfect, podia, devia and tinha que, and the past imperfect carries the same force as the present: ele devia estar aqui agora, mas não está 'he ought to be here now, but he isn't' holds where the present deve is odd. The data are Brazilian, and Ferreira reports no relevant difference from the European variety. Each form takes every flavor, and the tense is the datum the square reads, the matter of Studies/Ferreira2023.lean.

Main definitions

• Portuguese.Modals.poder, Portuguese.Modals.dever, Portuguese.Modals.terQue: the present forms.
• Portuguese.Modals.podia, Portuguese.Modals.devia, Portuguese.Modals.tinhaQue: the past imperfect forms.

References

• [Fer23]

Present

def Portuguese.Modals.poder : Auxiliary

pode 'can, may', the present possibility modal.

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def Portuguese.Modals.dever : Auxiliary

deve 'ought, should', the present weak necessity modal.

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def Portuguese.Modals.terQue : Auxiliary

tem que 'must, have to', the present strong necessity modal.

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Past imperfect

def Portuguese.Modals.podia : Auxiliary

podia 'could, might', the past imperfect possibility modal.

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def Portuguese.Modals.devia : Auxiliary

devia 'ought', the past imperfect weak necessity modal.

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def Portuguese.Modals.tinhaQue : Auxiliary

tinha que 'had to', the past imperfect strong necessity modal.

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