Hi, Mark!  Recently you wrote in a message to alexander koryagin:   
      
    ak>  how could he has said the silly words about a broken TV set?   
         |He *has said* [whatever].  He *could have said* [whatever].   
         How *could he have said* [whatever]?   Alexander hasn't told   
         us exactly what this individual said.  But I am beginning to   
         see what may be going on from a grammatical standpoint.  :-)   
      
      
      
    ak>  I have a feeling that "how could he HAVE said..." is   
    ak>  more correct, but I cannot find the rule.   
      
    ml>  you are correct... "have" is the proper one to use in   
    ml>  this case...   
      
      
               Agreed.  :-)   
      
      
      
    ml>  i'm not sure of the rule, though...   
      
      
               Neither am I.  After a bit of digging in FOWLER'S, however, I   
   found "could" identified as a modal auxiliary.  When I looked up "modal   
   auxiliary" it seemed to me that in every example the auxiliary *preceded an   
   infinitive*.  Not long thereafter I an across two more examples in a story   
   which I was reading to our daughter... a US publication, BTW.  It's a fantasy   
   & I'm paraphrasing here. The significant bit is that, when the frog blew his   
   nose on Our Hero's tie, Our Hero asked himself "What would [that cute gal at   
   the dry cleaning shop] think?" Like the speaker in Alexander's example, he was   
   considering possibilities... an application of the modal auxiliary which   
   FOWLER'S makes reference to.   
      
               Like me, you want to know how things work & IMHO your instincts   
   are usually quite accurate.  He thinks, she thinks.  Okay... now what happpens   
   when we use an auxiliary to introduce a note of uncertainty?  "Can she bake a   
   cherry pie, Billy Boy?" is well-known in North America.  So is "May I leave   
   the room?" to those of us whose teachers insisted we distinguish between "can"   
   (ability) & "may" (permission), but didn't explain that they're modal   
   auxiliaries too.  Our echomail buddies who are learning English as a foreign   
   language need terms they can look up for clarification of the "rules".  Native   
   speakers, OTOH, know what "sounds right" to them... but they may or may not   
   consciously understand *why*.   
      
               Thanks to you both!  I learned something, and I hope you did.  :-))   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)