On 2010-09-07, at 1:40 PM, Scott wrote:

> 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. 

I think that semantically, yes, it has an intuitive appeal. Syntactically, though, I think it's much harder to support. For one thing, the subject will agree with the first verb to the left, not the infinitive. In fact, the subject of the infinitive may not even be the subject of the first verb.

Best,
Brett

-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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