I think other candidates would be "be supposed to" and "be able to."
Like "have to", they can shift tense.
    "He is able to go." "He can go."
    "He has to go." "He must go." "He is supposed to go."
    Unlike the more prototypical models, you can combine them routinely.
    "He might have been able to go." "He should have been able to go." It
would seem ungrammatical to say "might can" or "should can", but the
periphrastic forms aren't so fully constrained.

Craig>


You're right, Scott. "Have to," "used to" and "ought to" (aka *hafta*, *
> useta*, *oughta*) are sometimes called quasimodals. (I don't think that
> was
> Victor Hugo's idea, but I could be wrong).
>
> Dick
>
> On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 1:40 PM, Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> Is it reasonable to think of "have + infinitive" as a modal construction
>> with the infinitive being the verb of the sentence?
>>
>> <I have to go> <I have to eat> <I ought to go> < I ought to eat> <I must
>> go> <I must eat> all seem like very similar ways of saying the same
>> thing.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Scott Woods
>>
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