MDWO Modal WOULD

MFTE MDWO Bohmann 21 child of PREDMD_ALL

Definition

The modal verb “would”.

Parent

PREDMD_ALL

Detection Rules

mfte

MFTE matches surface forms (line 1214): would, ‘d, wo, d. Uses word (not lemma) because Stanza lemmatizes “wo” as “will”.

cql[word={words} & pos="MD"]
Word list (3 items)
would 'd wo

Requires: word, pos

pybiber

cql[word={words} & pos="MD"]
Word list (2 items)
would 'd

Requires: word, pos

cql[word="would" & pos="MD"]

Requires: word, pos

Normalization

Per finite_verbs

Examples

Wouldn’t you like to know?

Source: le_foll_2024

If I could afford to buy it I would.

Source: le_foll_2024

I’d like to think it works.

Source: le_foll_2024

Sources

  • biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
  • mfte — Le Foll, Elen & Shakir, Muhammad (2023/2025) : Multi-Feature Tagger of English (MFTE) — Python version
  • bohmann_2019 — Bohmann, Axel (2019) : Variation in English Worldwide: Varieties and Genres in a Quantitative Perspective

Notes

Also serves as habitual aspect marker (“Every morning he would walk...”).

View YAML source