Semantic drift: are the words "can", "could", etc becoming contranyms?


There have been questions on ELU about the pronunciation of can and can't in American English. This question is about the usage of the word, not simply its pronunciation.


Here are a couple of examples found on google:



If contraction 't (apostrophe-t) was simply missed occasionally, it could simply be excused as poor proof-reading. However, the omission seems to be more widespread in popular usage. The root word (e.g. can) still retains its original, positive meaning, so a sentence such as "I can do that" is now at risk of being ambiguous - can is then its own antonym.


My question: is there a semantic drift occurring with words such as can and could, turning them into contranyms?




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