Given Herb's and Bob's posts, how do members feel about the following four:

Today, adolescents may leave school at 15.
Today, adolescents can leave school at 15

In the 30s, adolescents might leave school at 14.
In the 30s, adolescents could leave school at 14.

To me, they appear to be counter-examples to the implicit claim (not 
necessarily by Herb) in Herb's following comment

'There are some interesting theoretical treatments of the
tenselessness of main clause modals that I won't go into here.'

However, it's not a subject that I've studied so I look forward to further 
enlightening posts from Herb and Bob.

One interesting sidelight more to do with the problems of francophones 
learning English is the following.  They have to be taught that it is 
incorrect in English to say, 'Yesterday, I could run the distance in 10 
seconds' referring to an actual running of the race.

Ron Sheen

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/