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122
Where’s Nell? She must be sightseeing now (she is probably sightseeing).
John isn’t here. He must be working in the garden.
Jane is busy. She must be packing for the trip.
The perfect infinitive indicates a past action.
Did you always live with your father? You must have led quite a busy social life (evidently you led...).
The perfect continuous infinitive indicates the duration of the past action, a process in the past.
It must have been raining when you left (evidently it was raining when you left).
They must have been working all the lime. They look very tired (evidently they have been working all the
time).
Must expressing probability is not used:
a) with reference to the future. Instead of the modal verb the adverbs probably and evidently are used.
He will probably feel lonely.
b) in negative and interrogative forms. There are several ways of expressing the negative meaning of
probability in such sentences: by negative affixes, or negative pronouns, or lexically.
1. You must have misunderstood me.
2. They must have been inattentive.
3. She must have failed to recognize you.
4. He must have had no chance to warn you.
5. The letter must have never reached them.
6. The letter must have been left unanswered.
7. No one must have seen him there.
8 . He must be quite unaware of the circumstances.
Besides the above mentioned shades of meaning, sometimes accompanied by emphasis, the modal verb must
may be used solely for the sake of emphasis. In this case must is not translated into Russian, it merely
emphasises some action or idea.
Just when we were ready to go away for the holidays, the baby must catch measles (ребенок вдруг
заболел корью, ребенок возьми и заболей корью).
Of course after I gave her my advice she must go and do the opposites (... она вдруг пойди и сделай
наоборот).
As we were starting what must he do but cut his finger (... он возьми да и порежь себе палец).
At a time when everybody is in bed he must turn on the wireless (... он вдруг включает приемник).
To have to, have got to
§ 157. As a modal verb to have to differs from the others in that it is not defective. It can have the category
of person and number and all tense-aspect forms, as well as verbals. It is followed by a to-infinitive and
combines only with the non-perfect form of it.
As there is no through train to our town we have to change in Moscow.
We had to look all over town before we found what we wanted.
She won’t have to walk the whole way, will she?
Having to go so soon we were afraid of missing the man.
Have to builds up its interrogative and negative forms with the help of the auxiliary verb to do.