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Defective Verbs in English. In English grammar, defective verb is a traditional term for a verb that doesn't exhibit all the typical forms of a conventional verb. English modal verbs ( can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, and would) are defective in that they lack distinctive third-person singular and nonfinite forms.
May - English Grammar Today - a reference to written and spoken English grammar and usage - Cambridge Dictionary
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Let’s study all the situations where the modal verb may is used and should be used. Examples; Riya may be upset with you. Go check on her. (Possibility in the present) You may have hurt her feelings by calling her fat. (Possibility in the past) The business may get shut down next year. (Possibility in the future)
You may go now. You may come at eleven if you wish. to say that someone has permission in a formal way: Students may travel for free. We can use may not to refuse permission or to say that someone does not have permission, but it is formal and emphatic: You may not borrow the car until you can be more careful with it! Students may not wear jeans.
Defective verbs are often irregular and do not follow the typical patterns of conjugation. For example, the verb “be” is considered defective because it does not have a full set of principal parts. It is missing a present participle, which would be “being.” Other examples of defective verbs include “must,” “ought,” and “dare.”
A defective verb is a verb that cannot be used in all moods or tenses. Irregular verbs have all moods and tenses, but are irregularly formed. Regular verbs consist of three main parts (root/present, simple past, and past participle). Regular verbs have an -ed added to the end of the root verb for both the simple past and past participle.
Defective verb. In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb that either lacks a conjugated form or entails incomplete conjugation, and thus cannot be conjugated for certain grammatical tenses, aspects, persons, genders, or moods that the majority of verbs or a "normal" or regular verb in a particular language can be conjugated for [citation ...
