Of the various meanings of English modal verbs the most important is 'Possibility' that is carried by CAN, MAY, COULD or MIGHT.
'Possibility', one of the meanings of CAN, is the meaning assigned to the overlapping area between 'Permission' and 'Abili...
Of the various meanings of English modal verbs the most important is 'Possibility' that is carried by CAN, MAY, COULD or MIGHT.
'Possibility', one of the meanings of CAN, is the meaning assigned to the overlapping area between 'Permission' and 'Ability', and has the intermediate and neutral implication of external circumstances, where as 'Permission' and 'Ability' has innate properties or authority as their enabling conditions.
Epistemic 'Possibility' of MAY differs from Root CAN('Possibility') in that the former is concerned with the likelihood or factuality while the latter is theoretically concerned with the happening.
COULD has two forms of 'Possibility', a past time equivalent of CAN('Possibility') and Hypothetical equivalent of CAN(= 'Possibility'). As to MIGHT five forms of 'Possibility' are available: Epistemic, Past of MAY(Epistemic), Past of MAY(Root), Hypothetical Epistemic and Hypothetical Root.