Talk:went to

Semi-auxiliary or Marginal modal auxiliary verb
Signals the past existence of an intention which was not fulfilled (roughly the same as was about to). Unlike going to, this form can never be used with inanimate subjects because it signals a pre-formed intention. It cannot easily be used in questions and negatives either.

https://www.eltconcourse.com/training/inservice/modality/semimodals.html#2 JMGN (talk) 22:20, 19 August 2023 (UTC)