Please, don't asume that I didn't read everything before posting just because what I did was something you didn't like.
Thanks.
Cecy
It's not a question of 'not liking'. I was employing a technique used in teaching to identify what led a learner to a particular possible analysis or conclusion.
If a learner asks if a modal can be a dependent clause, it may indicate a fundamental lack of knowledge about the difference between verbs and clauses. It's important that learners have a good grasp of the basics and hence it's sometimes necessary to identify and correct any weaknesses in their basic knowledge before they move on to more advanced grammar.