@WBYeats,
Quote:Quote: CAN'T is a possibility
Now, say, I am the owner of a shop and am going to hold a lucky draw, can I say?:
With so many prizes, the majority of the participants CAN win.
I know we can use MAY/MIGHT/COULD, but I am not sure whether CAN is OK....
Both MAY and MIGHT would sound strange in this scenario because someone who wants to emphasize a "strong" chance of winning wouldn't choose low level of certainty modals like MAY and MIGHT.
Even COULD doesn't sound like the right choice as it detracts too much from the "stronger" sense the language intimates.
Look at these example from Michael Swan - Practical English Usage, where 'can' can be used
to talk about future actions which we will be able to do because of present ability, present circumstances, present decisions, etc.
She can win the race tomorrow if she really tries.
I've bought the tent, so we can go camping next weekend if we want to.
[jtt: bold is used to highlight, not to suggest that those instances of 'can' receive extra strong intonation]
You can/could substitute 'will be able to' for each can in those sentences/situations. But this particular nuance of 'can' is different to your situation in that yours still contains a relatively strong sense of chance, ie. the participants in the contest do not hold the same degree of control over the situation.
You can see that THE use of this meaning of CAN is too strong for if we plug in its synonym, 'will be able to' into your sentence,
With so many prizes, the majority of the participants WILL BE ABLE TO win.
it could very well lead many people to the wrong conclusion regarding their chances.
Speaking in a strict grammatical/semantic sense, your example seems like it sits right on the cusp of possibility, but as reality often intrudes into language use, I think in this case the greater tendency for a situation like this may be to choose something like,
With so many prizes, the majority of the participants have a good/an excellent chance of winning.
Also, we must consider that language exists in reality. As the store owner running the draw, you wouldn't want to create false hopes which could ['can' is not possible here] make people angry.
Maybe even "an excellent chance" would be too risky as it might also lead people to too high an expectation.
