R. Visan /TAM/Spring Term Modal Verbs

1. R. Visan/TAM/Spring TermModal Verbs Introduction Course motto: Tout va pour le mieuxdans le meilleur des mondespossibles. (Voltaire)

2. A definition of modality • Modality is ‘the speaker’s cognitive, emotive, or volitive attitude toward a state of affairs’ (Keifer 1994: 2516a) • World 0/ Versus/ World 1, World 2, World 3 • Unmodalised sentence • Elmer spends his time at home. • Modalised sentence • Elmer might spend his time at home.

3. Mood and Modality • Give other examples of sentences expressing the speaker’s cognitive, emotive, volitive attitude towards a state of affairs.

4. Mood and Modality • Moods other than the indicative: • If only that were true! • Clean your room at once! • Clause types other than declaratives: • What a nice room this is! • Can you show me your room?

5. Auxiliary verbs/Lexical verbs • List the main auxiliaries of English. • What are the differences in syntactic behaviour between lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs? • Is it true that auxiliaries have distinctive syntactic properties?

6. Distinctive syntactic properties of auxiliary verbs: The NICE acronym • Negation • Inversion • Code • Emphasis

7. Generalization • Auxiliaries are all characterized by similar syntactic behaviour= the NICE properties. • The auxiliary verbs of English are the following: • be, have, do, (use) (non-modal auxiliaries) • can/could, may/might, shall/should, must, will/would, ought, need, dare (modal auxiliaries)

8. Other distinctive properties of modal verbs, which distinguish them from other auxiliaries • 1. Only primary forms (no non-finite forms) • 2. No agreement • 3. Only bare infinitival complements • 4. Can occur in remote apodosis: • If you came tomorrow, [you could help me]. • 5. Modally remote preterite: • Could you move the car?/ • Were you able to move the car. • (Huddleston and Pullum 2004: 107)

9. Modal auxiliaries/lexical verbs • NEED, DARE • He needn’t go. • He needs to go. • I daren’t go. • I don’t dare to go.

10. Quasi-modals, modal equivalents, periphrastic modals • The case of: • HAVE (GOT) TO, BE ABLE TO, BE TO • What about OUGHT TO?

11. Modals and past-time meaning, modal remoteness • Could I trouble you for a piece of chalk? • Would you go for a drink? • Should I come with you?

12. Diachronic development of English modals: •  (i) desemanticization (semantic bleaching), (ii) decategorization (shift in grammatical category and in word-class), (iii) cliticization (changes in morphosyntactic properties), (v) phonetic erosion (changes in phonetic form). The former full verb has become a 'grammatical concept' always followed by the main verb ('the verb-to-TAM chain', Heine 1993: 47).

13. Modal verbs are polysemous • A. You must lock the door. • B. The door must be locked. • Contextual interpretation.

14. Definition of modality in terms of duality • Modality is an assessment of potentiality, depending either on the speaker’s judgement of the reality status of a state of affairs (epistemic modality) or on the speaker’s attitude towards the realisation of a desired or expected event (root modality) () • The word root suggests the primacy of non-epistemic notions over epistemic notions.

15. Root: Dynamic/Deontic • Dynamic: ability, volition • He can swim quite well. • Will you keep opposing me? • Deontic: obligation, permission • I must go now. • You may leave now.

16. ROOT modality • Rootmodality, rootsense:the non-epistemic sense of modals, whichdeals 'withobligation, permission, ability etc.' (Incharralde 1998: 1). • It covers DYNAMIC and DEONTIC modality. • It has been also called intrinsic modality, because it is part of the semantic content of the proposition.

17. Root/Epistemic • Sue must go to sleep right now! = Proposition X • (Obligation is intrinsic to the proposition) • (Deontic necessity) • Sue must be sleeping right now. • It is probable that [Sue is sleeping right now]. • Probable (Proposition x.) • (Probability is extrinsic to the proposition) • (Epistemic necessity)

18. Root modality– unity given by a predilect syntactic pattern The unity of 'root' modalityisshownbythesyntacticpatterns in which it appears: usually an animate subject, an agentiveverb andoften a passive infinitive. Comment on: • The moon can be seen from afar.

19. Epistemic modality • (fromGkepisteme ‘knowledge’) • It is extrinsic or extra-propositional, expressing the speaker's attitude towards the content of a proposition • Labels we associate with it: probability versus possibility (see other linguists’ use of epistemic necessity/epistemic necessity). • He must have been here two minutes ago. • He could be sleeping.

20. Epistemic modality – unity given by a predilect syntactic pattern • THE PROGRESSIVE INFINITIVE • He might be thinking of you. • THE PERFECT INFINITIVE • He must have thought of you.

21. The perfect puzzle • He might have thought of you. • Epistemic? • Root?

22. External perfect/ Internal perfect (The Scope of the Perfect) • He could have saved him and now he is alive. • (internal perfect) = Possible (she has saved him) • She could have saved him, if she had tried, but she didn’t. (counterfactual// external perfect) • = (Saving Possible) but (She has not saved him)

23. External negation/ Internal negation(The Scope of negation) • You mustn’t turn on the lights. • Obligatory (not X) • You don’t have to turn on the lights. • Not obligatory (X)

24. Modal strength • The murderer must be hiding here. • The murderer could be hiding here. • The murderer should be hiding here.

25. Semantic strength/Pragmatic strength • You must as you’re told. • You must have a bit of wine! It’s delicious. • You may do whatever you like now. • You may leave the papers on the desk.

26. CAN and MAY

27. ROOT CAN: Dynamic CAN • Ability: • He can do this in under five minutes. (potential) • I can hear something moving there. • (actualization of the reference of the perception verb)

28. ROOT CAN: Dynamic CAN • Opportunity: • Orange is my favorite, when I can get it. • Reasonable situation: • You can always just resign, you know. • Indirectness • Can you pass me the salt? • Sporadic ability/Existential use: • People like her can be nasty. • These orchids can be white or purple.

29. ROOT MAY: Dynamic MAY • FORMAL STYLE: • This disease is present in infancy, although it may not manifest itself until they reach adulthood. • You may always refer to them for help. • Laugh those that can/Weep those that may.

30. ROOT CAN: Dynamic CAN/BE ABLE TO • Can is used in parallel with a synonymous expression having a fuller range of forms - to be able to. • to be able to has a specific meaning, • in certain contexts we do distinguish between the uses of the two. • specific achievement, though this context does not rule out the use of can: Mary has now recovered from her illness and is able to / can go to school.

31. ROOT CAN: Dynamic COULD/WAS ABLE TOPast reference: • ! Preterite forms don’t have only past time meaning: • I could go there, if I wanted to. • Could you give me a hand here, please? • Versus Reported speech could (backshifted). • Past time could: • Professor B could talk to aliens. • Professor B was able to talk to aliens.

32. ROOT CAN: Dynamic COULD/WAS ABLE TOPast time reference: • He could play the piano very well when he was a child. (generic) • When he moved closer to the painting, he was able to / *he could see that it was a fake. (particular)

33. Special use of MIGHT and COULD • Why did you do such a reckless thing? • You could have been killed!/ you might have been killed! (but you weren’t) • You could have told me he was here! I would have come to meet him!/ You might have told me he was here, I would have come to meet him! ( but you didn’t, Similarity to counterfactual conditional)

34. ROOT CAN and MAY: DEONTIC use • Permission, Degrees of formality: • Old man: You can park here as far as I know. • Policeman: You may park here. • You can forget about it! (indirectness for sarcasm)

35. COULD and MIGHT – past forms • Reported speech: • He told me I could work there. • He told me I might leave. (may is acceptable in certain varieties, in Reported Speech) • Compare: • I might leave. • I was allowed to leave.

36. EPISTEMIC CAN and MAY: Possibility • Your ex-husband can remarry. He’s divorced now, isn’t he? • Your ex-husband may remarry. I heard he’s dating someone new.

37. EPISTEMIC CAN and MAY: Possibility • Epistemic can expresses the possibility/impossibility of an action to take place. It is more frequent in negations and interrogations, whereas in affirmative sentences may is preferred: • The dollar can be devalued. (It is possible to devalue the dollar. - theoretical possibility) • The dollar may be devalued. (It is possible that the dollar is devalued. - factual possibility)

38. EPISTEMIC CAN and MAY: Past forms with present reference and degrees of certainty • This may be true. • This might be true. • (?)This can be true. • This could be true.

39. External negation/Internal negation • This can’t be true! • This may not be true!.

40. EPISTEMIC May in Concessive Clauses • You may be in charge, but this doesn't give you the right to be rude. • Although you are in charge, this doesn't give you the right to be rude. • (I concede you are in charge) • Pragmatic strengthening.

41. MUST and the equivalent HAVE TO

42. Deontic use, Scope of Negation • You mustn’t turn on the lights! It is necessary [NOT x] (internal negation) • You don’t have to turn on the lights! • You needn’t turn on the lights! It is not necessary [x] (external negation).

43. Deontic use: The subject vs. others as a source of obligation/necessity • The university says: These people must be expelled if they disrupt lectures.(neutral) • You must return all the books to the library by Friday. (the speaker is in authority) • I must finish writing the essay by tonight. (inner obligation - I have my own program and I want to stick to it) • I have to finish writing the essay by tonight.( obligation springing from external source - the teacher wants the essays tomorrow morning)

44. Deontic use of Have Got To • While have to is used in formal language and has non-finite forms (will have to, having to), have got to is characteristic of colloquial BrE/AmEand is more restricted in use because of its lack of non-finite forms (*will have got to, *having got to). Have got to is rarer in the past and does not imply that the event referred to took place, unlike have to: • We’d got to make a trip to York anyway so it didn’t matter too much. (it was necessary…) • We had to make a trip to York to collect the bloody thing. (the event took place)

45. Epistemic MUST/HAVE TO • Someone must be hiding the truth. • Someone has to be hiding the truth. • Someone should be hiding the truth. • Someone will be hiding the truth. • Tom must be in his office. • Tom has to be in his office. • Tom should be in his office. • Tom will be in his office.

46. EPISTEMIC MUST and the Scope of Negation • (*)He mustn’t have been there. • He couldn’t have been there. • He may not have been there. • He needn’t have been there.

47. (SHALL)/ SHOULD • There are linguists who treat shall and should as separate modals, since should is no longer a preterite of shall. • ROOT-Deontic should (necessity) • You should/ought to ask her to forgive you. • Epistemic should (probability/logical necessity) • Her house should be/ought to be around here.

48. The primacy of the DEONTIC use • You should have listened to what he said. • He should have been here.

49. SHOULD in Subjunctive sentences • Mandative should • It is desirable that you should talk to them. • Emotive should • It is odd that he should speak like that. • Conditional should • Should you need my help, count on me.

50. NEED: LEXICAL versus MODAL • Usually in non-affirmative contexts • ROOT - Deontic NEED (necessity) Need I come with you? (modal) Do I need to come with you? (lexical) • Epistemic NEED (probability/logical necessity) (rare/archaic) • The letter needn’t be here. He could have taken it.