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Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Conversation between mother and son

Grammar

I. Read the following dialogue.

Naren Keshav comes home after six months of stay at a residential school to spend his short holidays with his mother.

Mother : Hello Naren, how was your journey? It was raining heavily. How did you come from the station?

Naren : I walked the distance.

Mother: What? Walked three kilometers!

Naren : Don’t you know ma, I am in the NCC? I can walk even ten kilometres on a given day.

Mother : When I was young, I too could walk four or five kilometres to fetch water from the river. Well. You must have a wash now. Go to the bathroom. Let me make your favourite noodles.

Naren : Can I have lime soda along with it, Ma?

Mother: No. Don’t you know you’re allergic to lime? Instead you may have mango milkshake. By the way, I plan to take you to your aunt’s place for a change.

Naren : Sorry ma, I ought to complete a lot of assignments before I return to school. Don’t you think that you should consult me before you decide?

Mother : Right son, you may go and do your homework before it gets dark.

Naren : Why ma?

Mother: The power might fail anytime.


In the above dialogue, the words ‘can’, ‘could’, ‘must’, ‘ought to’, ‘should’, ‘may’, ‘might’, are known as modals. The following table shows these modals (Column A) and their functions (Column B) as used in the above context.


A                               B
Modals                   Functions
can                         ability
could                      ability in the past
must                       compulsion
can                           request
ought to                   obligation
should                   compulsion
may                         permission
might                      possibility


Task: Fill in the blanks in the following story with the modals given in brackets.

(can, will, may, might, must, should, ought to)

“……………. you get rid of the rats in our town?” the Mayor asked the Pied Piper of Hamelin. “You ……….. give me a bag of gold, if I get rid of your rats.” “We ……… give you two bags of
gold but do you think that you …….. get rid of all the rats?” asked the Mayor. The Piper said, “I …….. get rid of all the rats.” The Mayor said, “You ………. go now.” The Piper got rid of the rats
but the Mayor did not keep his word. The Piper was angry. He said, “You …….. give me, my bag of gold.” The Mayor was stubborn. The Piper played a tune and took away all the children from the town. The townsfolk felt very sad and said, “The Mayor …….. have kept his word.”




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