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1 You needn't come if you don't want to. 2 You don't need to see a doctor. You're perfectly healthy. 3 I don't have to work on Saturdays. <1> The use of three forms illustrated above has several parallels with the use of must and have to, namely: (a) needn't generally expresses the authority of the speaker, while the other two verbs donete that external authority, or circumstances, remove the obligation or necessity for action: (b) needn't + present infinitibe has only a present or future time reference, although it can be left unchanged in reported speech: 4 I told him he needn't come if he didn't want to. If the absence of obligation or necessity will exist only eventually or is dependent on some other event, we use not need to or not have to, with will and shall: 5 When you get an assistant, perhaps you won't have to work quite so hard yourself. The simple present tenses don't have to and don't need to express (6) what is habitual, or (7) what is already planned or arranged for the future: 6 I don't need to get up till eight to geto to work on time. 7 We don't have to be there till ten tomorrow. or We haven't goto to be there till ten tomorrow. (c) We use negatibe forms of have to and need to in the many situations where needn't lacks the necessary verb forms: I haven't had to see a doctor for several years. (present perfect) We may not need to bring the subject up. (infinitive without to) We wouldn't have to hurry if the play started later. (conditional) We wouldn't have had to sleep in the car if we had booked a room at the hotel. (conditional perfect) (d) In view of the fact that the 'deficiencies' of needn't are suplied by the other verbs, distinctions in meaning between the three verbs are not always maintained. We can, in fact, sometimes make distinctions in meaning, which students will find more clearly expressed in some contexts than in others. Sentence 1 above, for example, is coloured by the permissive attitude of the speaker ('You can please yourself what you do.'), whereas sentence 2 is a statement of objective facet ('It isn't necessary'). The difference between don't need to and don't have to in sentence 2 and 3 may be paraphrased as: 2a It isn't necessary for you to see a doctor. 3a I am not obliged to work on Saturdays. It isn't necessary for me to work on Saturdays' does, of course, amount to the same thing, though it presents the situation in a slightly different way. <2> A more important distinction is the grammatical one between don't need to and needn't. Don't need to is part of the regular verb to need. Negative and interrogative sentences are formed using do, as with other regular verbs, and there is a full range of verb tenses. To need may be followed by (8) a noun or (9) an infinitive or gerund: 8 He need/needed your help doesn't need/didn't need Does he need your help? Did 9 I need/needed to see him immediately. don't need/didn't need A gerund after to need is the equivalent of a passive infinitive: 9a My pen need filling = My pen need to be filled. <3> The modal auxiliary verb need is always used in negative and interrogative sentences, which as with other auxiliary verbs, are made by adding not (n't) to the auxiliary verb, and by inversion of the subject and auxiliary verb: He needn't come. Need he come? The positibe form need is, however, found in sentences that already certain a negative verb or adverb: I don't think that need worry us unduly. He need study only the first two chapters. The above sentences also illustrate the fact that the auxiliary verb need, like other auxiliary verb, is followed by the infinitive without to, and that there is no -s ending after 'third person' subjects. <4> Needn't is followed by a perfect infinitive to indicate the absence of necessity or obligation in the past: He needn't have come. This sentence may be compared with others containing similar verb forms (auxiliary verb + perfect infinitive), which often suggest the idea 'contrary to fact'. You shouldn't have come. (but you come) You could have come. (but you didn't come) He needn't have come. (but he came) Needn't + perfect infinitive always expresses unreal past, and contrasts with didn't need to, which nearly always expresses real past: I needn't have come. (but I went) I didn't need to go. (so presumably I didn't go) |