German: Modal verbs and the infinitive at the end

You want to say you can leave early: the finite modal grabs second position while the main verb stays bare infinitive at the end (Ich kann … gehen). That frame packages ability, obligation, permission, or intention without nesting clauses. Listeners cue on the modal for speech act force and on the final infinitive for content.

Use this in workplace German, university admin, and travel. Edge case: double infinitive stacks in perfect-tense modals belong to a later level; here, keep present modals + single infinitive. Open-course audio from DW reinforces prosody [1]; Duden supports fine-grained grammar checks [2].