Re: [DE] modal verbs

Lee Sau Dan <danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> (Note that "I/he need not" is quite useful for expressing what
> German "Ich/er muss nicht" means, which is different from "I/he must
> not".)

Indeed, this divergence is a nasty faux ami for German-speakers. I
have learned, as a copyeditor, to be suspicious of sentences such as
"Here x must not be positive" if the author has a German name. There
is a good chance that "must" should be "need".

> But "he needs to go" has an -s there and the "to". Would you say
> "He need go."?

No, and I've never seen it. It is a peculiarity of "need" in this
construction that it is confined to negative contexts (broadly
defined, of course -- I can certainly say "Only a unique solution need
have all the symmetries of the problem"). I can say either "You don't
need to go" or "You needn't go", but only "You need to go".

"Need not" is very much part of my dialect, but counts as mildly
formal diction.
--
--- Joe Fineman joe_f@xxxxxxxxxxx

||: You can't even trust me to be ornery. :||
.

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