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Difficulty: MediumModal Auxiliaries and Expressing Modality

Which modal verb phrase correctly completes the sentence below to express a past unfulfilled obligation?

'The chief curator insisted that the rare sixteenth-century manuscript _______ with cotton gloves, but the assistant handled it with bare hands.'

  1. ought to have been handledAnswer
  2. B
    must to have been handled
  3. C
    might can have been handled
  4. D
    oughted to have been handled

Answer

The correct phrase is 'ought to have been handled', which uses the modal construction for expressing an unfulfilled past obligation in the passive voice.
The phrase 'ought to have been handled' correctly uses the semi-modal verb 'ought to' followed by the perfect passive auxiliary 'have been' and the past participle 'handled'. This structure is the grammatically standard way in English to indicate that a past obligation was expected or required but was ultimately not fulfilled.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the required semantic meaning from the context.
The clause indicates an action that was mandatory in the past but was not performed ('the assistant handled it with bare hands'). This requires a past unfulfilled obligation structure.
Modal auxiliaries express different nuances such as deduction, permission, or past unfulfilled duty based on context.
2
Formulate the correct passive perfect modal structure.
'Ought to' + 'have been' + past participle ('handled') creates 'ought to have been handled'.
The subject ('the rare sixteenth-century manuscript') receives the action, necessitating passive voice in the perfect aspect.
3
Eliminate ungrammatical modal inflections and combinations.
Exclude options containing double modals ('might can'), invalid prepositions after pure modals ('must to'), or irregular past tense inflections ('oughted').
Modal auxiliaries in English cannot be stacked directly or inflected with standard tense suffixes.

Key Concept

Expressing Past Unfulfilled Obligation with Modal Auxiliaries
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Topics

Modal Auxiliaries and Expressing Modality

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