You Might Could Learn Something (Modal Auxiliaries and the Subjunctive Voice)

AT gets a little regional sometimes when she isn’t paying attention. I mean verbally. I mean Southern, like her daddy from NE North Carolina. The other night she said something that got me thinking - that if Daisy’s crate were not where I had moved all of the decorative pillows (on top of, not in), she “might would put the dog in there”.

“Clearly”, I though, “that’s wrong.” Might would? But it’s not unusual, at least not in the portions of the American South I’m familiar with. It took me forever to figure out why, though, because I got hung up on thinking it was some kind of abuse of the subjunctive voice.

You know, subjunctive. As in “I wish you were here.” “Were” is the past tense of “are”, but the postcard sentence doesn’t mean “I wish you had once been at this place but had then subsequently departed.” It’s the past subjunctive, expressing a desire for a state of affairs while simultaneously expressing that that state of affairs isn’t the way things are.

I was still puzzling over it the next morning on the way in to the office, and trying to talk it through with AT. We eventually settled on the fact that neither of us was sure what part of speech “would” is in that sentence. Turns out its an auxiliary verb. These were presented to me in school as “helping verbs” — shall, must, may, can, will (as in “I will not remember any of this the day after the test”).

More specifically, “would” is one of the modal auxiliaries, which (according to Wikipedia) “differ from the other auxiliaries both in that they are defective verbs, and in that they can never function as main verbs.” (I would have thought the latter implied the former, but whatevs.)

So here’s the problem with “might would”: “might” and “would” are both modal auxiliaries, and they mean different (and, to my general way of thinking, exclusive) things. You either might do something, or you will. That is, from the speaker’s perspective, you’re either sure that you will, or you’re not. You can’t be “maybe sure” (like you can’t be sort of pregnant).

Right?

I don’t know, maybe. A world in which you could layer modal auxiliaries to add gradations of meaning to statements (like, say, the American South) is not a ridiculous world. Or, rather, that’s not why the American South is ridiculous. (I kid because I love, ok?) Haven’t you heard the truly southern say things like “you might could get those from CVS”, or “he might should have tried for the first down”, or “if I’d known you cared so much, I might would have told you it was stewed possum”?

One of my favorites is “may could”, as in “if you take the mule, you may could make it to town before the post office closes.” I’ve always thought this was a corruption of “maybe could”, as in “could perhaps”. But recognizing now that it is one of several double-modal regionalisms, I suspect that it has more in common with “might should” than “could perhaps”.

Just thought I might share the fruits of my research.