Be/have+v trigger covert modality in root (but not epistemic) terms: necessity and probability. They do this in several distributional forms the main being subject relative infinitives and object relative infinitives. In addition. Gerundial forms as substitutes for the infinitive enter the modal construction in german. As epistemic readings of xp is to v and xp has to v are excluded, the nonfinite epis-temic gap hypothesis is taken up again and brought (again) to a conclusion: the non-finite status of complements does not lend itself for epistemic readings.