Modals to speculate about the past – Who could have poisoned Banjo?

Hi! Welcome to another great English lesson with New English Academy. My name's Giles Parker and I'm your guide for today's lesson. I live in the beautiful Green Heart of Italy but life isn't always as pleasant as it seems here. So today we're going to hear about how my dog, Banjo was poisoned recently. The grammar point for this lesson looks at how to use modal auxiliaries to make a theory about or to speculate about the past. This is when you see something now but you don't know for sure what really happened so you make a theory or speculate about what happened. We’re going to look at phrases such as Someone must have done it; Someone could have done it; Someone might have done something, or Someone couldn't have done something. We'll do the reading and listening lesson first and then look at the grammar point after. As you listen to the podcast or read the transcript, try to look for these kinds of modal auxiliaries that speculate about the past. This lesson is aimed at advanced level learners because you need to know how to make past participles, and we will focus on some new, rare vocabulary, but don't let that stop you. As always don't forget to check out the website www.newenglishacademy.com for the complete set of interactive comprehension, grammar and vocabulary lessons for this podcast lesson as well as the games and tests. You can also find other free online lessons and a free guidebook on how to use these podcast lessons when you sign up.

Comprehension Text – Who could have poisoned Banjo?

The Green Heart of Italy is a truly beautiful place to live. We're surrounded by steep, wooded hills and small valleys covered in tobacco plants or sunflowers in the summer, or beans or clover or just left fallow at other times of the year. I can let my two dogs, Banjo and Lucy run in the woods when I take them for a walk. The woods are full of different birds and animals. Sometimes the dogs chase a deer or a rabbit or a squirrel but Banjo and Lucy are too slow to catch them.

Recently I was walking Banjo and Lucy on a trail across one wooded hill when Banjo started vomiting violently. Suddenly he couldn't stand up for very long and he started shivering and shaking. He was definitely unwell and tried to crawl under thick bushes to hide. I gave him some water but it didn’t help him. He was really suffering. I half-dragged, half-carried him back down the trail to the car. I suspected that he had eaten some poison that had been left in the woods by someone.

We raced to a vet in town and she saved his life. The vet confirmed that poor Banjo had eaten a kind of poison that is often used by local hunters. She also said that she sees a poisoned dog in her surgery every day of the year. I shouldn't be surprised that guys will put down poison to kill animals. It is supposed to be illegal but people still do it. I don't know who did it but it could have been local truffle hunters. Truffles are a delicious type of fungus that grows wild in the woods here. If you can find it you can sell it for €1000 a kilogram. Local guys train their dogs to find truffles. They also put down poison near where there are truffles. A local hunter might have put down some poison to kill the competition.

Another theory is that Banjo might have eaten poison that was put down to kill foxes. Hunting is a very popular pastime here. It seems to me, between September to February every year, if something – birds, animals - can move, someone is going to shoot it. Local hunters like to grow and release pheasants in the woods here and then hunt and kill them in autumn. Foxes kill and eat the pheasants while they are still young. A local guy could have placed poison in the woods so as to kill the foxes and to protect the pheasants. I don't know. It seems kind of extreme to me.

Another theory concerns boar. There are lots of wild boar in the hills around here and they do quite a bit of damage to the land as they search for things to eat. A local farmer could have left poison in the woods so as to control the boar population, maybe. I don't know - that seems like a bit of a long shot as local people prefer to hunt boar in the winter. In the end, anyone could have poisoned Banjo and we wouldn't know who. There isn’t a lot I can do.  I am more careful about where I walk the dogs and I always carry an anti-poison kit which is basically lots of water, and sachets of salt and bicarbonate of soda. After all this is a beautiful place, but sometimes you have to accept that rules are different in the countryside.

Grammar explanation

Now for the grammar explanation. Did you find examples of modal auxiliaries used to speculate or make theories about the past? So, for example, in the text,

· Someone must have put down poison.

· It had to have been a local hunter that did it.

This is showing that I am very sure about the past. Did you see the two modal auxiliaries? Did you also see the past participles after have? So the rule for speculating about the past is:

· modal auxiliary + have + verb past participle.

Each time we use it we're trying to say what we think happened. This means we can express how sure we are, like 100%, or 50% sure. If you're 100% sure something happened (or not) in the past then you can say something must have happened. You can also say had to have + past participle. For example:

· He must have felt awful.

· He had to have eaten poison left by hunters.

If you are 100% sure that something didn't happen, then you can say can't have happened, or couldn't have happened. For example,

· My neighbors couldn't have done it. They like Banjo.

· He can't have eaten the poison earlier. He was in the garden all morning.

But what if you're not so sure? Then you can use could have + participle or may have or might have + past participle. They all show that you're not so sure. For example:

· The poison may have been left by jealous truffle hunters, or it could have been put down by pheasant hunters. I don't know.

What about making questions? You can easily make questions to speculate about the past. Just move the subject from before the modal auxiliary to after it. So for example:

· Could they have done it?

· Might he have died?

So, to sum up, when you want to make a theory or speculate about the past because you can see something now, just use a modal auxiliary + have + past participle. You can show how sure you are by changing the modal. I hope this has been helpful for you. Don't forget, you can get the full interactive comprehension lesson, the grammar and vocabulary lessons and the tests and games for this free English lesson podcast when you sign up at the website www.newenglishacademy.com. See you at the Academy!