Saturday, January 2, 2016

modal verbs - "It can contain" or "It can contains"?


What is the correct form?




1) It can contain


2) It can contains




Answer



As a native speaker I would say



1) it can contain



To use contains, the word "can" must be dropped, e.g.




2b) it contains



Only the modal verb (in this case, can) has to be in third person singular, the second part of the verb must be in bare infinitive form (because it is used after a modal).


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