No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The Semantics of the Modal Auxiliaries
... root modality) (npr. Kalogjera 1982;Coates 1983) ili se pak rabi krovni pojam neepistemička modalnost (eng. non-epistemic modality) (npr. ...
... Dok glagol morati u pravnom kontekstu predstavlja primjer jake obveze, glagol trebati rabi se za izražavanje slabe obveze. Kako ističe Coates (1983), osnovna razlika između glagola morati i trebati jest što se u iskazima s morati zahtijeva neka radnja, dok se u iskazima s trebati takva radnja samo predlaže, odnosno sugerira. Dakle, kod morati postoji očekivanje da će netko ispuniti radnju, dok kod glagola trebati takvog očekivanja općenito nema, osim u pravnom kontekstu kada se smatra da je to moralna obveza i dužnost tako da neka vrsta očekivanja ipak postoji. ...
... Kada govorimo o nužnosti, potrebno je naglasiti da se glagol trebati obično koristi za izražavanje slabe deontičke nužnosti, za razliku od morati koji ima jako deontičko značenje, štoviše ima zapovjedno (imperativno) značenje koje ukazuje na obveznost pravne norme. No i unutar te slabe deontičke nužnosti karakteristične za glagol trebati nalazimo nijanse u značenju pa se tako u svom najslabijem obliku može rabiti za davanje savjeta (u slučaju subjektivne uporabe) ili za opisivanje kakve procedure, odnosno kako bi nešto trebalo biti, a ne kako nešto mora biti (u slučaju objektivne uporabe), dok u svom najjačem obliku uporabe ima značenje moralne obveze ili dužnosti, posebice u pravnom kontekstu (Coates 1983). Glagol trebati, zapravo, zbog svoje umjerene snage naspram morati, izražava ono što Declerck (1991: 378) naziva obvezom koja se može izbjeći (eng. ...
Cilj je ovoga rada istražiti deontičku modalnost na primjeru modalnih glagola moći , morati , smjeti i trebati u pravnom tekstu na hrvatskome jeziku te ih usporediti s prijevodnim ekvivalentima tih glagola u službenom engleskom prijevodu istog teksta. Pravni tekst koji se analizira jest Statut Sveučilišta u Zagrebu koji predstavlja temeljni akt Sveučilišta. Usporednom analizom želi se ukazati na sličnosti i razlike u značenju i uporabi navedenih glagola u dva promatrana jezika.
... Modality refers to linguistic devices that indicate the degree to which a state of affairs is possible/impossible, probable/improbable, certain/uncertain, permitted/prohibited, or necessary/unnecessary (Lyons, 1977). Modality is a semantic concept as well as a grammatical phenomenon manifested in the form of modal expressions such as modal auxiliaries (e.g., 'can'), modal adjectives and adverbs (e.g., 'maybe', 'impossible'), nouns (e.g., 'likelihood'), and mental state verbs (e.g., 'believe') (Coates, 1983;Palmer, 2001Palmer, , 2013. In addition to a lexical manifestation, modality is often discussed with mood and, therefore, it can be expressed in conditionals (Hegarty, 2016;Rocci, 2017). ...
... 50). Coates (1983) emphasized that based on deductive reasoning, EMDs of certainty (e.g., 'must') could express assertiveness towards something that has not yet been proven as definitive or true. Hegarty (2016) maintained that epistemic modality communicated "what must, might, should, or cannot be the case, based on available evidence, or what is known" (p. ...
... It can be involved in making inferences, predicting, and generating hypothetical speculations about what is possible, probable, or certain based on existing information, all of which are prominent features of argumentation (Walton, 1990;Pinto, 2001;Oswald, 2023). Specifically, Coates (1983) perceived 'would', 'could', 'might' as markers of hypothetical meaning. Likewise, citing Toulmin (1958) and van Eemeren and colleagues (2007), Rocci (2008Rocci ( , 2017 suggested that modal auxiliaries such as 'may' and 'can' facilitated hypothesis formulation. ...
Language is essential for making meaning in written communication, and argument writing is a key genre of schooling to which language contributes rich resources for constructing different types of arguments. Despite being a challenging language practice, argument writing research lacks investigation into the language demands of this writing genre. Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach, the present study explored the role of language in adolescent students’ argument writing through the lens of the relationship between argumentation features (reasons, counterarguments, rebuttals) and students’ use of epistemic modality devices (EMDs) - linguistic tools that express the author’s knowledge of and belief about the possibility of whether a state of affairs is true (e.g., ‘must’, ‘maybe’). Argument writing samples from 115 upper elementary students were analyzed to explore the relationship between EMDs and written argumentation. Descriptive analysis showed that reasons and modal auxiliaries that indicated certainty (‘will’, ‘would’) were most frequently employed by the students. Multiple regression analyses revealed a positive, significant relationship between number of reasons in students’ writing and their EMD usage. Subsequent qualitative content analysis identified two salient patterns of how EMDs assisted with reason construction, (1) predicting consequences, and (2) speculating causes of behaviors. The findings emphasize the close relation between language and argumentation and hence highlight the importance of the explicit instruction of language features pertinent to argumentative discourse.
... The notion of 'modal harmony' (or 'modally harmonic') goes back to Lyons (1977) and was elaborated in Coates' (1983) study on 'should' in which it denotes the correlation of a modal (in this context, 'should') with a co-occurring modal item that expresses the same degree of modality, i.e. does not add any further modal nuances to the modal meaning (see Coates 1983: 69, cited in Bybee et al. 1994). An illustrative case in point is example (1): ...
... The notion of 'modal harmony' (or 'modally harmonic') goes back to Lyons (1977) and was elaborated in Coates' (1983) study on 'should' in which it denotes the correlation of a modal (in this context, 'should') with a co-occurring modal item that expresses the same degree of modality, i.e. does not add any further modal nuances to the modal meaning (see Coates 1983: 69, cited in Bybee et al. 1994). An illustrative case in point is example (1): ...
This paper focuses on the developmental tendencies and mechanisms underlying the unfolding of mood systems in Romance complement clauses. In view of the fact that the subsequent dynamics of change can be better understood and motivated against the backdrop of the Latin system, we take the basic structure of the Latin mood system as the reference and necessary starting point of our analysis. After briefly discussing the basic approaches to the mechanisms of mood change in the relevant research literature that puts forward notions like ‘modal harmony’, ‘regrammation’, ‘lexicalization’, and ‘conventionalization’, the article develops a modal–semantic perspective that casts a different light on the convergent and divergent developments of mood in the complement clause domain of Romance languages. The modal–semantic approach allows, apart from a coherent description and analysis of the developments, recasting the question of whether mood, especially the subjunctive, also comes with its own semantic value(s) in complement clauses. This modal–semantic approach not only provides a coherent description and analysis of the developments but also allows for a re-examination of the abstract semantics of the subjunctive mood (in complement clauses), spelling out its basic semantic features.
... There are various taxonomies regarding modality. While some categories remain consistent such as deontic (Palmer 1986; Van linden & Verstraete 2011; Kratzer 2012; Nuyts & van der Auwera 2016) and epistemic (Lyons 1977;van der Auwera & Plungian 1998;Palmer 2001;Nuyts 2005;Kratzer 2012), others do not, such as dispositional (Kratzer 2012), preferential (Kratzer 2012), dynamic (Goossens 1983), evidential (Bybee 1985;Palmer 1986;Narrog 2005), root modality (Steele 1975;Hofmann 1976;Coates 1985;Talmy 1988;Sweetser 1990), epistemological modality (Hengeveld 1989), and propositional modality (Palmer 2001). Simpson's (1993) study combines ideas from Lyons (1977), Coates (1985), Perkins (1983), Palmer (1986), and Simpson (1990) for a unified, refined and polished approach to its taxonomy. ...
... While some categories remain consistent such as deontic (Palmer 1986; Van linden & Verstraete 2011; Kratzer 2012; Nuyts & van der Auwera 2016) and epistemic (Lyons 1977;van der Auwera & Plungian 1998;Palmer 2001;Nuyts 2005;Kratzer 2012), others do not, such as dispositional (Kratzer 2012), preferential (Kratzer 2012), dynamic (Goossens 1983), evidential (Bybee 1985;Palmer 1986;Narrog 2005), root modality (Steele 1975;Hofmann 1976;Coates 1985;Talmy 1988;Sweetser 1990), epistemological modality (Hengeveld 1989), and propositional modality (Palmer 2001). Simpson's (1993) study combines ideas from Lyons (1977), Coates (1985), Perkins (1983), Palmer (1986), and Simpson (1990) for a unified, refined and polished approach to its taxonomy. His account is a compelling starting point for a modality-focused literary analysis. ...
... The findings of our study are consistent with the findings of Coates (1983Coates ( , 1987, who investigated lexical exponents of modality and concluded that modal verbs (e.g. MAY) are far more common than the corresponding modal adverbs (e.g. ...
... Referring to Coates' (1983) semantic analysis of modal auxiliaries, Nuyts (2000: 173) describes should as a modal verb expressing "epistemic inference", where inference is perceived as expressing "evidential meanings". So used, these modals indicate that "the speaker is led to postulate the state of affairs because of evidence available to him/her" and, thereby, should represents propositions based on "weaker evidence" (Nuyts 2000: 173-174). ...
... Daugs 2020Daugs , 2021Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004;Hilpert 2008Hilpert , 2016, we seek to do justice to (i) the fact that modals are not only linked to the following but also their previous co-text via syntagmatic associations and (ii) the established correlations between specific modal interpretations and properties of the subject (e.g. ANIMACY, PERSON) (Coates 1983). Since each of the contractions at hand belongs to a different semantic cluster (namely 'ability/possibility', 'obligation/necessity ', and 'volition/prediction', respectively;Coates 1983: 27-29) and is entrenched and conventionalized to different degrees, can't and won't arguably more so than shouldn't, the findings are, in sum, expected to contribute to understanding negative contractions specifically and contractions more generally. ...
... it, that, which, there) and the stative verb be among the top configurations. What all this shows is that these subjects are simply an extremely strong syntagmatic signpost for activating expectations about the soon-to-follow stative verb because there are not very many highly frequent alternatives, regardless of the negative modal that is used along with them; see Coates (1983) on correlations and syntactic co-occurrence patterns of modal verbs in general. G 2 simple at least incorporates information about the paradigmatic alternations of a given pattern, which, among other factors, has been argued to determine the strength of syntagmatic associations during processing (cf. ...
Starting from the premise that English negative modal contractions constitute partly variable patterns of associations that include both the preceding subject and the following verb infinitive, the study sets out to investigate distributional differences between can’t , shouldn’t , and won’t and their corresponding uncontracted parent forms. Given that some configurations are assumed to correlate with specific modal meanings (e.g. inanimate subjects and stative verbs > ‘epistemic prediction’; first person subjects > ‘(un)willingness’ or ‘commissive modality’), roughly 200,000 trigrams from COCA are submitted to distinctive covarying collexeme analysis in order to uncover if these contractions and their full forms are conventionalized and entrenched differentially enough to merit their separate treatment on both conceptual and methodological grounds. The results point to probabilistic tendencies, suggesting a cline where won’t and can’t appear to be more emancipated from their respective full-form analogue than shouldn’t . Furthermore, the study showcases how collostructional methods can be applied fruitfully to case studies embedded in Schmid’s (Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2020. The dynamics of the linguistic system: Usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment . Oxford: Oxford University Press) Entrenchment and Conventionalization Model .
... Depraetere and Reed (2006, p. 273-275) explain that the root modality is related to the "actualization of situations", whereas epistemic meaning 4 In her list, Reis lists werden 'will' in brackets. 5 Duden (2009, p. 426), however, adds that in terms of their semantic function, brauchen 'need' and haben zu 'have to' should be also added, and labels these as "half modals". ...
... For more arguments why evidentiality should be regarded as a type of a modal meaning, see Narrog (2015, 11). 8 For more detailed classifications of modal meanings, see Coates (1983) ...
This paper points out that there is presently no consistent definition of German modals, nor is there any agreement as to which verbs should be categorized as modals. The paper suggests that modals should be defined based on modal polyfunctionality, i.e. the ability to express both root and epistemic readings. Applying this definition, the paper states that besides canonical dürfen ‘beallowed to’, können ‘can’, mögen ‘may’, müssen ‘must’, sollen ‘should’, wollen ‘want’, verbs werden ‘will’ and brauchen ‘need’ are to be considered modals as well, since they semantically behave as standard modals. More specifically, they are both capable of expressing both root and epistemic modalities. Furthermore, the paper proposes that the absence of agreement in 1st and 3rd person singular in modals such as in ich/er mussØ ‘I/he must’ cannot be solely attributed to their preterite-present origin of modals, but is related to the synchronic definition of modals, i.e. their polyfunctionality as a result of paradigmatic coherence. In addition to exploring the central modals, the paper investigates the paradigms of brauchen ‘need’, as well as werden ‘will’, suggesting that they might be aligning with the central modals in terms of their agreement morphology as well. Since being theoretical, the paper’s arguments are supported by the examples from the texts referenced in literature or produced by native speakers of German.
... Los resultados de la investigación empírica muestran que la instrucción gramatical es necesaria para la adquisición de la L2 frente a la ausencia de intervención, y que de entre los enfoques pedagógicos mencionados, aquellos que se fundamentan en la atención a la forma resultan superiores por sus efectos más duraderos (Norris y Ortega, 2000;Ellis, 2001;Long y Robinson, 2009). Asimismo, esta ha puesto de manifiesto la efectividad de un tratamiento explícito en comparación con un enfoque implícito (Norris y Ortega, 2000), aunque cabría interpretar estos hallazgos con cautela, ya que podrían obtenerse resultados distintos según la naturaleza del ítem gramatical objeto de estudio, los métodos de investigación empleados o el grupo de edad al que pertenece el alumnado (Doughty, 2001;García Mayo, 2017, 2018; García Mayo e Imaz-Agirre, 2019). ...
... Los conocimientos gramaticales que se trabajan para la expresión de la obligación comprenden los verbos modales should, must y have to además de imperativos en inglés y el verbo devoir, la expresión il faut + infinitivo e imperativos en francés. Estas formas lingüísticas no presentan una relación lineal entre forma, significado y función, dado que su significado semántico y pragmático es múltiple, puesto que depende en gran medida del contexto en el que se usan (Coates, 1983;De Saussure, 2014). En consecuencia, son difíciles de adquirir por los aprendices de lenguas extranjeras (Celce-Murcia y Larsen-Freeman, 1999). ...
La realidad de la enseñanza de lenguas en España sigue alejada de una instrucción gramatical reflexiva e interlingüística necesaria para el dominio lingüístico. Se hacen así indispensables dispositivos metodológicos que permitan al profesorado abordar este tipo de enseñanza en las aulas. Este trabajo atiende esta cuestión a partir del análisis de los conocimientos gramaticales y las operaciones discursivo-cognitivas en las que inciden los currículos españoles de lenguas extranjeras (inglés y francés) de Educación Secundaria. Los resultados mostraron que la modalización, la oración compuesta y la deixis son conocimientos gramaticales relevantes en esta etapa, así como las operaciones discursivo-cognitivas de «recordar», «aplicar», «evaluar» y «crear». Estos resultados y estudios previos guiaron el diseño de dos secuencias didácticas de gramática Egramint (en adelante SDGE) en inglés y francés, que siguieron las demandas curriculares, y suplieron las carencias detectadas mediante actividades conducentes a la reflexión metalingüística y la transferencia entre lenguas. Palabras clave: enseñanza gramatical; transferencia interlingüística; secuencias didácticas; currículo; lenguas extranjeras.
... Oh, that's just Oxford. In example (21), the speaker uses the interjection oh to express a happy feeling about Oxford. ...
... The finding of the recent study reveals that only (21) instances of epistemic adjectives are found. The frequency of epistemic adjectives is shown in Figure ( are mostly tentative cognition nouns. ...
... "Must" enjoys the highest degree of certainty or commitment, meaning that something is required, legitimate, and logically necessary [35][36][37]. Given the polysemy of English modal verbs, we rely on the full specification of the meaning of modal verbs proposed by Coates [38]. Specifically, "must", and "should" have the meaning of obligation/commitment and inference; "can" has the meaning of possibility, ability, and permission; "may" has the meaning of possibility and permission; "might" means possibility; "could" means possibility and hypothesis; "would" has the meaning of volition and hypothesis; "will", and "shall" have the meaning of volition and prediction. ...
Recent years have witnessed a “discursive turn” in image construction studies. This article explores the linguistic features of image construction. We provide a corpus-based diachronic study of the distribution of modality in The Reports to the 16th to 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and unravel the role of the modal verbs in conceptualizing China’s images in The Reports. To analyze the national image, we need to understand how the various elements in The Reports, i.e., actors, actions, and situations, are not only depicted but also intricately interconnected in terms of volition, obligation, and prediction. The diverse national image profiles can be discerned through the lens of how the actors perceive the situations in relation to what is deemed desirable, committed, possible, important, and expected in the context of The Reports. The study finds that The Reports, based on the frequency, value, category and translation of the modal verbs, can project different image profiles of the nation, such as a reliable planner, a committed and powerful leader, and an active participant showing respect for others.
... Lo que busca este agrupamiento de valores es establecer una categoría que reúna todas las dimensiones no-epistémicas -también conocida como modalidad "radical" (root modality; cf. Coates, 1983)-y pueda oponerse a la epistémica (véase Rodríguez, 2010, pp. 185-194, para una exposición detallada y esclarecedora sobre la distinción entre modalidad epistémica y modalidad deóntica). ...
"Verbal periphrases in Spanish continue to pose difficulties in terms of their characterization and delimitation, due to the lack of reliable criteria that would allow to establish the defining features of auxiliary verbs. In this work we focus on the verb necesitar ‘need’, whose behavior in some infinitive constructions has led grammarians to treat it as semiauxiliary. With the aim of delving into the properties of this verb, we outline, first of all, the intrinsically modal meanings that it has as a lexical unit, and we then show that its function as an auxiliary shows up in contexts where the verb stops predicating a need of the subject to indicate the necessary occurrence of an event. Between one case and another, we identify ambiguous structures, in which the predicative load of necesitar is blurred as a result of the greater discursive prominence that the event expressed by the infinitive gains. KEYWORDS: discursive prominence; grammaticalization; modality; necesitar; verbal periphrase"
... Aull et al. 2017), differently from instances where, for example, uses of "could" expressing a dynamic modality appeared (We conducted a recruitment survey of every entrepreneur who could speak conversational English in SCAR) instead of an epistemic one (We suggest that, as a possible solution, experienced professionals could volunteer time to guide emerging-market entrepreneurs in SCAR), or where may appeared in dates and occurred as a noun. Must was selected when expressing inferential certainty (Coates 1983;Hyland 1998a: 106) and can when indicating a solid possibility (Biber et al. 1999: 492). Uses of will expressing volition were not considered, unlike those featuring unhedged predictions (Pindi & Bloor 987: 58;Hyland 1998b). ...
In the press releases (PRs) issued by universities to showcase the research of their affiliated authors, the purpose of knowledge dissemination seems to coexist with that of self-promotion (e.g. Di Ferrante et al., 2021; Petrocelli et al., 2022). This reflects the hybrid nature of corporate PRs (e.g., Jacobs, 1999; Catenaccio, 2008). Considering that academic discourse often enhances reliability through hedging strategies (e.g., Hyland, 1998a), whereas science news tends to emphasise the impact of findings (e.g., Stocking, 1999), this study examines how hedges and boosters of academic discourse manifest in press releases. A mixed-method approach was used to analyse 30 academic articles and their associated press releases. Results highlight the prevalence of boosters in PRs. However, these also contain hedges to convey credibility by acknowledging scientific uncertainties. Further studies with a larger corpus and additional metadiscursive elements are proposed to validate these results.
... Merger will be particularly helpful to describe MAY and MIGHT in this article. Let us have glance at Coates' (1983) definition: ...
This article aims at displaying the results of a preliminary study on MAY and MIGHT in extraposed subject clauses where they compete with the meditative-polemic-Should. Two types of extraposed subordinate clauses will be compared, one in which MAY and MIGHT have an epistemic meaning and one in which they behave like the meditative-polemic-Should. The examples extracted from Google reveal that this specific use of MAY and MIGHT is mostly found in American English, that it is mostly used in journals, and that the subclause refers to past events that could logically be expected. What is more, the subordinate clause containing this modal auxiliary reformulates the title of the article or of a paragraph. This shows that the proposition in which it is found plays a crucial role in the text, which is to provide the main information of the article once the background has been explained. We will also see that when the subject of the content clause is animate, MAY and MIGHT are less likely to have an epistemic or root reading than when the subject is inanimate. Finally, the examples reveal that this form collocates with subjective markers denoting the point of view of the subject, via the use of verbs of cognition and perception or via the progressive aspect (it’s not surprising that he may want, need, choose, be feeling…). We propose to call it the “subjective-explanatory-May”.
... It also expresses the speaker's sureness or doubt about the truth of a proposition expressed, so the modality expressions of epistemic are possibility, probability, and inferred certainty (Bybee et al., 1994). Possibility shows that the proposition might be true, as "She may be sick, as I met her this morning in the clinic" (Coates, 1983). Probability reveals that the proposition seems more accurate than a possibility, as "The economic condition should be better by next year" (Bybee et al., 1994). ...
This research aims to describe how power relation is exercised through mood and modality used by lecturers during the teaching and learning process in the classrooms. It is categorized as descriptive qualitative research, and the data were collected from the utterances of the English Education lecturers through non-participant observation. They were then analyzed by following three stages of Fairclough CDA. The analysis was done from textual to social practice analysis to reveal the relation between the utterance and power the lecturers practiced in the classrooms. The research finding reveals that the power is reflected through the use of imperative, interrogative, and declarative mood structures. Modality is realized through modal auxiliaries: will, would, can, must, could, may, should, and verbs; have to, think, had better, need to, be sure, perhaps, and be going to. Those expressions carry the meaning of volition, obligation, encouragement, permission, demand, and possibilities employed by the lecturers in the classes. The above meanings of those expressions represent the lecturers’ power over the students. The built power relation represents Indonesian culture in which those in higher positions play as superiors. Examining modality and mood expressions used in education will hopefully give an insight into how to build good communication.
... Modality and, more specifically, modal constructions have been described through a plethora of definitions and hypotheses concerning their synchronic as well as diachronic uses (see Bybee et al., 1994;Coates, 1983;Narrog, 2012;Palmer, 1990;van der Auwera & Plungian, 1998, among many others). These studies have predominantly focused on the production and development of modal constructions cross-linguistically or within several varieties of the same language. ...
While previous studies have investigated the productivity of the BETTER construction (in the forms had better, 'd better and better) in British and US English (USE), to present knowledge, no large-scale comparisons on the use of this construction in other English dialects have been carried out. The present paper aims to address the existing research gap by exploring the synchronic use and grammaticalization rate of BETTER in 20 world Englishes. The analysis of corpus data reveals that BETTER is more grammaticalized in USE than in British English, and even more in Singapore English (SgE) data, where the construction seems to be more gram-maticalized than in any other dialect. The hypothesis of a functional need in SgE for deontic BETTER is tested. It is shown why SgE 'needs' alternative deontic constructions in a modal system where (semi-)modals of necessity have been shown to express higher rates of 'dynamic' modality than in other dialects. The substrate reinforcement from a parallel construction in Mandarin is presented as a potential driving factor justifying the selection of BETTER as a deontic marker in this particular variety.
... Pour mieux comprendre quelles pourraient être les contraintes sémantiques probabilistes qui influencent la formation des DMs, nous avons utilisé un cadre analytique inspiré de Coates (1983) et Palmer (1990). Ce cadre distingue deux types de significations : d'un côté, le degré de certitude du locuteur à propos d'un événement (modalité épistémique), et de l'autre, l'attitude du locuteur envers la possibilité de cet événement (modalité radicale). ...
La Clé des Langues ENS Lyon (ISSN 2107–7029)
... In linguistics, the study of epistemics primarily focuses on modality and evidentiality (Aikhenvald, 2004;Boye, 2012;Coates, 2015;Palmer, 1986), exploring how speakers use various linguistic resources to express their level of commitment to the propositional content of their assertions. Heritage (2012) offers a compelling example of this, demonstrating how different linguistic resources can be deployed to convey varying degrees of certainty about the possibility that it is raining: ...
This paper focuses on the phenomenon of self-initiated self-repair in weight loss discussions within clinical settings. It shows that one of the primary functions of self-repair is to manage epistemics in talk. The study explores repair operations and techniques, shedding light on the linguistic resources employed by doctors and patients to modify knowledge claims in relation to their interactional objectives, the speaker's epistemic status, and the epistemic stance expressed by the interlocutor. Throughout the paper, we demonstrate how self-initiated self-repairs contribute to achieving epistemic balance and congruence in talk between healthcare providers and seekers, supporting the smooth delivery of unsolicited weight loss advice. Data are in British English.
... En los ejemplos anteriores, observamos que la fórmula inclusiva utilizada con una frecuencia más elevada en los artículos de medicina escritos en español es la primera persona inclusiva, en todas sus formas (pronombres personales, adjetivos posesivos y desinencias verbales de primera persona), Por su parte, los autores de artículos de medicina redactados en inglés suelen recurrir habitualmente al uso de estrategias de cortesía negativa mediante los directivos should, need to o must, que podemos agrupar bajo la denominación de verbos modales de necesidad y obligación (Coates, 1983). Asimismo, también tienden a la utilización de imperativos como see o consider, de carácter textual y cognitivo (Hyland, 2002a). ...
... Deontic modality is often subsumed under broader categories that capture possibilities and necessities existing due to factors inherent to the situation, categories such as root (e.g., Coates 1983), agent-oriented (Bybee et al. 1994), or participant-external modality (van der Auwera and Plungian 1998). Permission by an authority is then one kind of situational factor making an action possible, alongside other, non-deontic circumstances. ...
Two modal verbs of German are regularly used to express deontic possibility: können (‘can’) and dürfen (‘may’). We examine how speakers select between them, focusing on modal inquiries for permission to carry out some action (darf/kann ich das machen, ‘may/can I do this’). Our data are video-recordings of everyday face-to-face interaction, which we analyze sequentially, drawing on interactional-linguistic methods. We find that local sequential context and aspects of visible turn-design systematically enter into the accomplishment of deontic meaning. (1) Position of the modal inquiry within a course of action informs verb selection: speakers select kann to nominate an action as coming “out of the blue” and initiating a new course of action; darf to nominate an action as sequentially occasioned: a solution to an already known-in-common problem. (2) Bodily behavior (gaze, body posture) guides the interpretation of modal flavor, moving a kann-inquiry towards a deontic or a circumstantial interpretation, and moving a darf-inquiry towards a deontic or a bouletic interpretation. Overall, the study demonstrates the systematic contributions of sequential position and body behavior in the accomplishment of modal meanings.
... present and past) for English. Future markers are often treated as modals with temporal constraints in the literature (Partee 1973;Coates 1983;Enç 1996;Palmer 2001;Condoravdi 2002, andBochnak 2019, etc.) due to their similar performances with modals and their non-deictic nature, which is unlike that of present and past tense. Mandarin hui/jiang should not be different, either. ...
This article demonstrates how the Implicational Complementation Hierarchy (ICH) is manifested in Mandarin and accounts for the data with a synthesis model of complementation (Wurmbrand and Lohninger, in: Hartmann, Wöllstein (eds) Propositional arguments in cross-linguistic research: theoretical and empirical issues, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 2023. https://doi.org/10.24053/9783823394105). In line with proposals linking tense to finiteness in Mandarin (A. Li in Abstract case in Chinese, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1985, A. Li in Order and constituency in Mandarin Chinese, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1990. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1898-6; Sybesma in Linguistic Inquiry 38:580–587, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2007.38.3.580; T.-H. Lin in Syntax 18:320–342, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1111/synt.12032; He in Time in Mandarin: the fingerprints of tense and finiteness, Harvard University, Cambridge, 2020; J. Huang in: Simpson (ed) New explorations in Chinese theoretical syntax: studies in honor of Yen-Hui Audrey Li, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.272.02hua etc.), I argue that the postulation is not only reasonable given independent evidence supporting a covert tense in the language, but also productive since the distribution of future modals and overt embedded subjects can be properly addressed with little theoretical cost. The finiteness preference in Mandarin complementation also aligns with ICH: Proposition com-plements only select finite clauses while Event complements are non-finite. Situation complements mostly choose the non-finite version, but some cases can or must choose the finite form. The complements to the left on the ICH are always ‘equally or more finite’ than those to the right.
... It will be argued that while we can describe epistemic modality semantically, it is useful to have a broader outlook in order to describe some of the pragmatic functions associated with it in Portuguese and English. The notion of epistemic modality in natural language is closely linked to the speaker and to subjectivity (Coates, 1983). In addition the hearer can be drawn into the interaction, be appealed to or be deferred to. ...
Este artigo compara o emprego de modalidade epistêmica em conversas informais envolvendo falantes na tivos britânicos e brasileiros. O corpus de diálogos em inglês (110 mil palavras) foi extraído do componente falado do British National Corpus Sample e o corpus de diálogos em português (110 mil palavras) foi compilado com base no Projeto da Norma Urbana Oral Culta do Rio de Janeiro (NURC-RJ). Inicialmente, o artigo revisa diversas vertentes da literatura envolvendo o conceito e emprego de modalidade epistêmica. A seguir, o artigo procura evidenciar equivalências de formas e funções entre as duas línguas, centralizando a discussão no emprego das frases I think – eu acho, dos marcadores discursivos you know – sabe, e de perguntas de confirmação ou tag questions. Os resultados indicam que, em diálogos, o estabelecimento e manutenção de relações sociais são de vital importância e que por esta razão os interlocutores raramente empregam afirmações categóricas.
... Thus, what was once asserted with conviction is now portrayed as a doubtful declaration. Furthermore, modality can subtly reveal power dynamics within conversations (Coates, 1983). When an individual, like the math teacher in this case, expresses a prediction with certainty, it often implies an underlying authority or a strong belief in their judgment. ...
This paper explores the relationship between teachers and learners, particularly within Mathematics education, examining how language and discourse influence relationship dynamics. It acknowledges historical educational hierarchies where teachers exerted authority and students assumed passive roles. Through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study scrutinizes a Swahili meme, ‘Wewe mwalimu wa mathe uliyesema sitofika mbali, hapa ni wapi?’ (‘You, the math teacher who said I wouldn’t go far, where is this?’), which reflects students’ doubts and potential discouragement from math teachers. Employing qualitative methods like digital ethnography and purposeful sampling, the research examines the meme’s interpretations, employing CDA to dissect linguistic features such as deixis, modifiers, modality, interrogative structures, proniminal and iron or rhetoric, and socio-cultural contexts. The analysis reveals the meme’s strategic use of these linguistic elements to challenge power dynamics, evoke reflection, and convey deeper meanings. The implied meanings of the meme expression include questioning authority, validation of student agency, a narrative of resilience, critique of the educational system, and the significance of teacher-student interactions. The study has also shown that the hapa ni wapi? ‘Where is this’ expression has impacts on Math’s teachers and teachers at large. Such impacts are focused on power dynamics, identity representation, the role of teachers, emotional impact, and pose challenge to the educational system. This study, highlights the influential role of teachers in shaping students’ lives, emphasizes the importance of language use in education, and promotes a more inclusive and growth-oriented learning environment.
... The excerpts prove Leech and Svartvik's [13] claim that the inherent polysemy of modal verbs allows them to achieve varying specific communicative intents and purposes in a political discourse. This further emphasizes Coates' [30] claim that context and personal judgment are ways to separate or classify the specific communicative functions of epistemic modal verbs such as will and must. ...
This qualitative corpus-based study employing epistemic analysis uncovered the epistemic modality (EM) markers used and their communicative functions in the seven inaugural speeches of the seven Philippine 5th Republic presidents. The findings revealed the preponderant use of epistemic modal verbs with 152 occurrences (81.72%), followed by epistemic lexical verbs with 20 occurrences (10.75%), epistemic modal adverbs with 9 occurrences (4.84%), and epistemic modal adjectives with 5 occurrences (2.69%). Moreover, the top-five modal verbs operated in the presidential inaugurals are will with 97 instances (66.9%), can with 28 instances (19.31%), shall with 9 instances (6.21%), would with 6 instances (4.14%), and could with 5 instances (3.44%). Meanwhile, should and might were never used by any president. In this regard, the presidents are confident, committed, bold, and certain with their statements; some are tentative and quite confident but still communicatively sensitive and polite; and few are uncertain but still diplomatic. Further, the communicative functions of the EM markers were categorized to high-intermediate-low modality values, certain-probable-possible semantic meanings, and close-near-distant epistemic distances.
... En los ejemplos anteriores, observamos que la fórmula inclusiva utilizada con una frecuencia más elevada en los artículos de medicina escritos en español es la primera persona inclusiva, en todas sus formas (pronombres personales, adjetivos posesivos y desinencias verbales de primera persona), Por su parte, los autores de artículos de medicina redactados en inglés suelen recurrir habitualmente al uso de estrategias de cortesía negativa mediante los directivos should, need to o must, que podemos agrupar bajo la denominación de verbos modales de necesidad y obligación (Coates, 1983). Asimismo, también tienden a la utilización de imperativos como see o consider, de carácter textual y cognitivo (Hyland, 2002a). ...
Este libro tiene como objetivo principal mostrar análisis comparativos del inglés y del español que pueden ser de utilidad tanto para docentes como para investigadores y traductores. El contenido de este volumen podrá ser utilizado en la docencia sobre los marcadores metadiscursivos tanto para la formación de traductores como en lenguas modernas. Así mismo, puede ser referente para investigadores, así como para traductores que son conscientes de la dificultad de interpretar en ocasiones estos marcadores.
... In investigating what drives speakers to choose one (semi-)modal over another when expressing necessity or obligation, several previous multivariate analyses demonstrate the influence of both linguistic and social factors (Jankwoski 2004;Tagliamonte 2004;Tagliamonte and D'Arcy 2007;Tagliamonte and Denis 2014;Hansen 2018;Flach, Cappelle and Hilpert, 2023). These studies include a range of linguistic factors as potential factors that condition observed variation, including the animacy, grammatical person, and reference of the subjects, as well as the type of verbs -all associated with the strength of the obligation as originally hypothesized by Coates (1983). Specifically, according to the cline theory of Coates (1983: 34), second grammatical person/animate/non-generic subjects and dynamic verbs signal stronger expression of obligation. ...
The modal verbs of necessity and obligation, a testing ground of grammatical change, have been shown to exhibit change and variation in world Englishes. Previous studies have primarily concentrated on English as a native language (ENL) and English as a second language (ESL) varieties. The present study extends this line of research and explores variation in modal verbs of necessity and obligation in English use as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Descriptive statistics indicate that ELF resembles American English and also shares similarities with ESL varieties. In addition, ELF further exhibits divergence from both ENL and ESL varieties that arises in multilingual interactions. The multivariate analysis of this study employs mixed-effects logistic regression on the use of must and have to. Integrating social and linguistic factors, this analysis exploits metadata gathered from the VOICE corpus, which has thus far been underused. The results of the inferential statistics indicate that the same sociolinguistic factors that influence the variation in ENL and ESL varieties also shape ELF grammar. These findings not only bring ELF closer to other English varieties but also demonstrate the advantage of studying ELF from a variationist sociolinguistic perspective.
... The excerpts prove Leech and Svartvik's (1997) claim that the inherent polysemy of modal verbs allows them to achieve varying specific communicative intents and purposes in a political discourse. This further emphasizes Coates' (1983) claim that context and personal judgment are ways to separate or classify the specific communicative functions of epistemic modal verbs such as will and must. ...
This qualitative corpus-based study employing epistemic analysis uncovered the epistemic modality (EM) markers used and their communicative functions in the seven inaugural speeches of the seven Philippine 5th Republic presidents. The findings revealed the preponderant use of epistemic modal verbs with 152 occurrences (81.72%), followed by epistemic lexical verbs with 20 occurrences (10.75%), epistemic modal adverbs with 9 occurrences (4.84%), and epistemic modal adjectives with 5 occurrences (2.69%). Moreover, the top-five modal verbs operated in the presidential inaugurals are will with 97 instances (66.9%), can with 28 instances (19.31%), shall with 9 instances (6.21%), would with 6 instances (4.14%), and could with 5 instances (3.44%). Meanwhile, should and might were never used by any president. In this regard, the presidents are confident, committed, bold, and certain with their statements; some are tentative and quite confident but still communicatively sensitive and polite; and few are uncertain but still diplomatic. Further, the communicative functions of the EM markers were categorized to high-intermediate-low modality values, certain-probable-possible semantic meanings, and close-near-distant epistemic distances.
... Buradaki zorunluluk içten gelen dinî bir zorunluluktur. Coates (1983)'in de belirttiği gibi dilde zorunluluk, bir iş, oluş, kılışı zorunlu hâle getiren yaptırımın gücüne bağlı olarak dereceli bir kavram olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Nitekim buradaki zorunluluk da isteğe dayalı zorunluluk şeklinde belirmektedir. ...
... After Halliday, the theoretical discussion on the topic was developed by Lyons (1977), Sueur (1978) and Palmer (2001), but it still only focused on epistemic modality. On the other hand, there have been some empirical corpus-based studies that considered other types of modality, such as Huot (1974), Coates (1983), Nuyts (2004), Narrog (2009), Kratochvílová (2018) and Hütsch (2020). 3 Prior to performing this study, I established some parameters to define the cooccurrence of modal markers. ...
This paper presents a corpus-based study on the co-occurrence of lexical modal markers expressing possibility or necessity in the six comedies written by Terence. Although the co-occurrence of modal markers has long been discussed in the literature, a systematic and comprehensive study of this phenomenon is still lacking, and studies on Latin are almost absent. In this paper I will first provide a quantitative overview of the phenomenon, discussing my methodological approach and challenges linked to it. Then I will delve into the qualitative analysis of the passages with co-occurrence, focusing on both the interactions observed between types of modality and the use of the co-occurrence for argumentative purposes in specific contexts.
... Merger will be particularly helpful to describe MAY and MIGHT in this article. Let us have glance at Coates' (1983) definition: ...
Published in LingBaW. Linguistics Beyond and Within vol. 10 (2024) - This article aims at displaying the results of a preliminary study on MAY and MIGHT in extraposed subject clauses where they compete with the meditative-polemic-Should. Two types of extraposed subordinate clauses will be compared, one in which MAY and MIGHT have an epistemic meaning and one in which they behave like the meditative-polemic-Should. The examples extracted from Google reveal that this specific use of MAY and MIGHT is mostly found in American English, that it is mostly used in journals, and that the subclause refers to past events that could logically be expected. What is more, the subordinate clause containing this modal auxiliary reformulates the title of the article or of a paragraph. This shows that the proposition in which it is found plays a crucial role in the text, which is to provide the main information of the article once the background has been explained. We will also see that when the subject of the content clause is animate, MAY and MIGHT are less likely to have an epistemic or root reading than when the subject is inanimate. Finally, the examples reveal that this form collocates with subjective markers denoting the point of view of the subject, via the use of verbs of cognition and perception or via the progressive aspect (it’s not surprising that he may want, need, choose, be feeling…). We propose to call it the “subjective-explanatory-May”.
Keywords: MAY; MIGHT; Modal auxiliaries; Meditative-polemic-should
... To provide a provisional meaning-based classification of DMs, we use the traditional categories defined by Palmer (1990) and Coates (1983) for English, especially Epistemic and Root, with Root further subdivided into Deontic (participant-external) and Dynamic (participant-internal). We also use a tweaked distinction between modal Possibility and Necessity based on Biber et al. (1999), subsuming Prediction under Epistemic Necessity and Volition under Root/dynamic Necessity. ...
Construction Grammar is an emerging theory of language, but the analysis of sociolinguistic variation is still relatively underdeveloped in the framework. In this article, we consider the representation of social meaning in Construction Grammar through a corpus-based analysis of double modals in British English on social media. We describe the use of double modals in a large corpus of geolocated Twitter posts, including presenting an inventory of observed double modals and maps showing the regional distribution of each of these forms. We find that double modals show a general northern pattern and are concentrated in the Scottish Borders. We also find various rare double modals that occur more widely across the UK. To account for these results, we propose a Construction Grammar account of double modals. We argue that defining double modals as grammatical constructions requires that aspects of their social meaning be delimited, especially register and region. Furthermore, we argue that double modals may be enregistered as dialect constructions, distinguished from standard constructions of British English. We conclude by considering the importance of incorporating social meaning into Construction Grammar, underlining the value of a Cognitive Sociolinguistic approach to grammatical theory.
... Traditionally, modality is divided along semantic dimensions into three types: 1) epistemic modality, which refers to the degree of certainty to which a predicate holds in reality, as in Sarah may/must be at home now, 2) deontic modality, where the modal indicates to what degree the subject is forced to do the action, as in David may/must leave now, and 3) dynamic modality, which expresses ability, illustrated in He can swim (Palmer, 1990(Palmer, , 2001de Haan, 2006;Nuyts, 2006Nuyts, , 2016Xiong and Meisterernst, 2019;Cournane, 2020;Álvarez-Gil and Morales, 2021). Coates (1983) coined the term 'root modality' to cover both deontic modality and dynamic modality. However, as appears in this discussion, deontic modality is associated with such notions as obligation, permission, interdiction, advice, and so on. ...
Thestudy investigates the syntactic properties of deontic ʔilla in Jordanian Arabic (JA). It was shown that deontic ʔilla is a directive modal that expresses what is desired to be done from the perspective of the individual and/or the society, so it is used in to convey invitations, advice, and rules. It is argued that the deontic modal force that ʔilla has stems from the exclusive focus property that generally characterizes ʔilla in Arabic. As for the syntax of deontic ʔilla, I have proposed that the modal particle first merges in the head position of its projection (MdeoP) and then moves to the T position. The invariable imperfective verb after ʔilla does not bear any temporality, so it remains in the V position. Furthermore, arguments were advanced to support the standpoint that ʔilla is a positive polarity item. Finally, it was revealed that deontic ʔilla, unlike the epistemic one, occurs in assertive as well as non-assertive contexts, as cross-linguistically witnessed.
... According to Lyons (1977), epistemic modality is concerned with "matters of knowledge, belief, or opinion rather than fact". According to Coates (1983), the domain of epistemic modality ought to center on the speaker's suppositions or evaluations of potentialities, which, in the majority of instances, conveys the speaker's level of assurance (or lack of confidence) in the veracity of the proposition being articulated. Palmer (2001) introduces epistemic modality as speakers express their judgments about the factual status of the proposition. ...
Epistemic modality is an important and complex linguistic device in academic writing, which could help authors state their claims and positions. The conclusion is also a critical part in research articles, where authors summarize their studies and give suggestions. Many scholars study modality in many aspects, but they rarely focus on its application in research article conclusions. Therefore, this study compared the use of modality in 25 conclusions of linguistic research papers written by native English speakers and 25 English conclusions written by Chinese authors from a systemic functional perspective. It focused on the similarities and differences of the use of modality in linguistic research article conclusions from two perspectives: value and orientation. The results show that both native English speakers and Chinese authors are more likely to rely on low and median value and subjective orientation in their conclusions. The findings suggest that linguistic research article authors tend to make claims in a reserved and tentative way. Moreover, this study shows that Chinese authors are more likely to employ modal expressions and subjective orientation of modality in their conclusions, which may relate to cultural diversity and modality shift. The findings of the study may help non-native English authors to produce linguistic research articles in a more acceptable way.
Modality – the ways in which language can express grades of reality or truth – is the subject of a vast and long-established body of research. In this book, field-leader Jan Nuyts brings together twenty years of his research to offer a comprehensive, fully integrated view on areas of contentious debate within modality, from a functional and cognitive perspective. The book provides an empirically grounded, conceptual reanalysis of modality and related categories including evidentiality, volition, intention, directivity, subjectivity and mirativity. It argues for the dissolution of the category of modality and for an alternative division of the wider field of semantic notions at stake. The analysis also reflects on how to model the language faculty, and on the issue of language and thought. It is essential reading for researchers interested in the semantics of modality and in the implications of this domain for understanding the cognitive infrastructure for language and thought.
While the category shift of deverbal prepositions has been well documented in grammaticalization studies, its accompanying process of subjectification remains underexplored. Adopting a constructionist perspective, this article addresses the gap by analyzing data from the Corpus of Historical American English. We present a multivariate analysis of the deverbal preposition considering to examine the role that subjectification has played along the way to it becoming a preposition over the past 200 years. Specifically, we investigate whether the two grammatical variants, participial and prepositional considering, can be anchored in context, focusing on a set of subjectivity indicators and their gradual changes over time. The findings are twofold. First, the two variants can be distinguished by six contextual features, namely subject animacy, subject person, contextual polarity, presence of degree modifiers, presence of modal auxiliaries and genre. Second, over time, there is an increasing correlation between the prepositional variant and levels within contextual features that indicate greater evaluative subjectivity. Previous scholarship has debated whether subjectification is independent of grammaticalization. This study contributes to this discourse by illustrating how various facets of subjectification may interact and manifest to varying degrees within the process of grammatical change.
This paper aims to describe the types of modality expressions in English and Indonesian folktales and to examine the extent to which these two groups of writers express modality differently. This study was conducted as descriptive qualitative research, focusing on the use of modalities in Indonesian and English folktales. A total of 30 folktales were collected from the United States, Britain, and Indonesia as the data sources. The data were analyzed based on the theories of Nuyts (2002) and Bybee (1994). The results show that native English writers tend to express deontic modality primarily through modal auxiliaries such as shall, should, can, could, must, and may. However, epistemic meanings are conveyed not only through modal auxiliaries but also through adjectives, adverbs, and lexical verbs, with lexical verbs being the most frequently used. In contrast, non-native writers used fewer varieties of modality expressions, including modal auxiliaries, adjectives, adverbs, lexical verbs, and multi-word units, often relying on the same types of expressions across the folktales. Unlike deontic modality, the folktales are rich in epistemic modality, as the writers used a wider range of expressions to convey these meanings.
This study tackles an explanation for the 'hypothetical' meanings of the English modals could and might with respect to some common semantic notions related with possibility, ability and permission. Such notions are illustrated by giving some examples. This paper also shows a sort of comparison between these two modals especially when 'could' and 'might' are studied as substitutes for 'can' and 'may'. Also it has been indicated how these modals are in many cases more or less interchangeable. In addition, hypothetical 'could' is seen to be used with perfective aspect to indicate contrary to fact meanings.
Keywords: Hypothetical trends, Contra-factual inclination , Semantic
Aspect
This study reports on an investigation of modal expressions of necessity in Xhosa, a Bantu language of South Africa. Combining analysis of occurrences in a small corpus and the native-speaker intuitions of one of the paper's authors, we describe patterns and restrictions in the distribution of two markers of necessity, auxiliary-like fanele and funeka; we also give some notes on the necessity marker mele. The most significant differences in the meanings and uses of these markers are in the participant-internal and epistemic domains, and the lexical meanings (still active in Xhosa, in addition to the markers' modal functions) are evident in their usage distributions.
Dil biliminde zorunluluk ve izin ifadeleriyle ilişkilendirilen yükümlülük kipliği, bireyleri belirli eylemler gerçekleştirmeye ya da bu eylemlerden kaçınmaya zorlayan dil bilimsel kavramları içermektedir. Bu çalışmada yükümlülük kipliğine dair mevcut yaklaşımlardan hareketle yükümlülük kipliğinin anlam alanlarından biri olan zorunluluk kipliğinin açıklanması hedeflenmektedir. Yükümlülük kipliği zorunluluk, izin ve isteme kipliği gibi üç ana başlık altında ele alınmaktadır; ancak bu çalışmada yalnızca zorunluluk kipliği detaylandırılacaktır. Zorunluluk kipliği, güçlü ve zayıf zorunluluk olarak iki alt başlığa ayrılmaktadır. Güçlü zorunluluk, hukuki veya bürokratik yaptırımlarla desteklenen zorlayıcı durumları ifade ederken, zayıf zorunluluk, toplumsal normlar ve beklentiler doğrultusunda ortaya çıkan durumlardır. Bu iki zorunluluk türü arasındaki temel fark, yaptırım gücünün kaynağı ve derecesidir. Güçlü zorunluluk eylemin belirli bir yaptırım altında zorunlu hale gelmesini sağlarken, zayıf zorunluluk bireyin toplumsal çevre veya normlar tarafından belirlenen beklentiler doğrultusunda hareket etme durumunu ifade etmektedir. Çalışmada kiplik işaretleyicilerine odaklanılmamış, bunun yerine zorunluluk kipliğinin cümle bağlamındaki anlamı üzerinde durulmuştur. Bu tercih, dildeki biçimsel ögelerin dışındaki anlamı derinlemesine analiz etmeyi sağlamak amacıyla yapılmıştır. Ayrıca, toplumsal normlar ve yasal düzenlemelerle etkileşimde bulunan zorunluluk kipliğinin bireylerin eylemlerini yönlendiren bir unsur olarak işlevini araştırarak dil bilimi alanına önemli katkılarda bulunmayı hedeflenmektedir.
This chapter explores possibility modals in Chinese, unraveling the morpho-syntax of their complements through the lens of First Phase Syntax. In our analysis, we concentrate on the syntactic differences between the two basic possibility modals kě 可 and néng 能 in Late Archaic Chinese. We propose that although both modals are dynamic possibility modals hosted in the lexical layer, they differ in their syntax and in the event structure of the complement they select. The default complement of kě always refers to a result state and is unaccusative; in order to introduce the external argument of the complement verb, the functional morpheme yǐ 以 is required heading the causing event. By contrast, the default subject of a modal predication with néng is a causer or agent. We suggest that the morpho-syntactic changes within VP during the Early Middle Chinese period led to the weakening of the constraints on the complement of kě and the loss of overt marking of the res head by affixation.
The article presents a corpus-based study that aims at establishing how modality is used in climate change-related discourse by King Charles III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the UK). The study involved a corpus of speeches on the topic of climate change delivered by King Charles III from 2005 to 2023. The corpus was analysed in the computer software AntConc (Anthony) in order to compute the frequency of the occurrence of the central modal verbs. Thereafter, they were analysed qualitatively to establish the types of modality associated with them. The analysis revealed that climate change-related discourse by King Charles III was marked by a high frequency of the occurrence of the modal verbs will and can. Their frequency, pragmatic roles, and association with the different types of modality are further discussed in the article.
The use of modal auxiliaries in research articles and political speeches has been well investigated. The genre of commencement speeches, however, has yet to be investigated as far as the use of modal auxiliaries are concerned. In Legon Journal of the Humanities 35.1 (2024) Page 193 addressing the gap, the present study compares the usage of modal auxiliary verbs in commencement speeches of Ghanaian speakers with American speakers, and investigates the semantic contribution of the modal auxiliaries in the speeches. Additionally, the study also explores the speech act performed via the usage of the modal auxiliary verb and their pragmatic nuances in commencement speeches. The dataset for the study is a corpus of 51,447 words obtained from twelve (12) commencement speeches of the Ashesi University (in Ghana) and twelve (12) highly ranked American Universities. The study employed AntConc 4.0 to generate the instances of modal auxiliary usage in the data. Leech's (2004) theory of modal auxiliary meaning and Searle's (1969) Speech Act Theory were employed to identify modal meanings and speech acts performed in the speeches. The study highlights the vital role of modal auxiliaries and speech acts in encoding actions that speech acts inspire within the Ghanaian and American contexts. These include the can-do attitude of Ghanaians, on the one hand, and the need-to-cherish-family and keep close ties attitude of the Americans, on the other hand. The results show that relatively speaking, American commencement speeches employ more modal auxiliaries than Ghanaian commencement speeches.
Este artículo analiza los usos del Imperfecto del indicativo en el español peruano amazónico, una variedad formada en situación de intenso contacto lingüístico. Típicamente el Imperfecto porta valor durativo por oposición al sentido puntual del pretérito, valor continuo en contraste al carácter delimitativo del segundo y valor indefinido en referencia a una situación pasada no específica, a diferencia del Pretérito que alude a la totalidad del evento (García Fernández, 2008; Cipria y Roberts, 2001, p. 300). Usando como marco de referencia los enfoques teóricos temporal, aspectuales, y con énfasis en el contexto y el discurso (Rojo, 1990, 1999; García Fernández, 2008; Hopper y Thompson 1980, p. 251; Fleischman, 1990, p.168), se examinan usos prototípicos y atípicos del Imperfecto. Estos últimos consisten en poner los eventos en primer plano, una función usualmente desempeñada por el Pretérito. El examen de los datos muestra que los valores del Imperfecto están constreñidos por el aspecto léxico del verbo, los modificadores adverbiales temporales, el tipo de estructura narrativa en el que aparecen (Labov y Waletzky, 1997[1967], p. 3). Estos son empleados con propósitos pragmáticos que manifiestan la subjetividad del narrador. Los datos consisten en narraciones de experiencias personales a hablantes monolingües recogidas a través de entrevistas sociolingüísticas conducidas en la ciudad de Iquitos, Perú.
Compared to neighboring Romance languages, Galician currently maintains a more ubiquitous usage of the construction [haber (present) + (de) + infinitive] as a future marker in variation with the periphrastic construction with ir ‘go’ and the morphological future. We examine this under-studied construction to gain a better understanding of Galician grammar and also contribute new data with which to consider diachronic change regarding the grammaticalization of the future from obligation markers. We conduct a variationist analysis of 1589 tokens of future forms in recorded conversations (CORILGA) in order to determine the frequency of usage, patterns of variation, linguistic conditioning and degree of grammaticalization of the periphrastic forms with haber and ir in contrast to the morphological variant. We find evidence to suggest that the periphrastic construction with haber is highly grammaticalized as a future marker and we identify factors of the production context that modulate the grammaticalization process.
This article falls within the conceptual framework of critical discourse studies and cognitive linguistics whose attention has focused on the discourse found in the public sphere on the topic of migration. I will demonstrate the results of my analysis of a corpus composed of 74 opinion articles that were published in a Spanish regional newspaper between August 2020 and February 2021. All of them focus on the same issue: the mass arrival of irregular migrants at one of Europe’s outermost borders, the Canary Islands, and the social, political and economic strain that this is generating. The results of this analysis indicate that the periphrastic auxiliary verb poder (can/could/might) constitutes an essential resource for the way in which knowledge is managed by the authors whose intention is to fuel the debate by guiding the conceptualisation of reality of readers who do not have perceptual access to the events described.
The decline of certain core modals in English, including may and might, is a well-documented phenomenon (cf. Daugs 2017). It is less clear, however, whether this tendency will lead to the loss of these modals or whether other changes are also underway. I aim to address this issue by looking at the use of may and might in concessive clauses. I will first present the results of a corpus study (COHA) aimed at understanding the diachronic development of concessive may and might. The analysis reveals a significant increase of may and might in concessive contexts since the 1960s, especially in factual concessives with but. This new finding is important as it shows that, though decreasing in frequency, the two modals are developing new patterns of use. This raises the question whether the status of may and might as modal verbs is also changing. I argue that the two verbs are going through a process of post-modal (secondary) grammaticalisation and constructionalisation, and that the concessive meaning is linked to the more complex 'SUBJ {may/might} VP, but-CLAUSE' construction. I also claim that, within the paradigm of concessive constructions, those with may and might are best viewed as hedged concessives that serve politeness purposes.
Numerous studies conducted on the Iraq War have consistently highlighted the ongoing controversy surrounding its justification, even to this day. In response, several political and linguistic studies have delved into the issue, seeking to understand how George W. Bush managed to persuade the global community to support the removal of the Iraqi government. This particular study focuses on analyzing political speeches, specifically the State of the Union and War Speeches, as these genres play a pivotal role in shaping public opinion on the Iraq War. The analysis employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, using Saeed's [1] framework to examine the use of epistemic modal verbs. The findings reveal that George W. Bush employed various persuasive tactics, relying heavily on ten recurring functions of epistemic modal verbs within both genres. These functions include anticipation, assertion, assumption, conviction, hedge, incitement, likelihood/probability, prediction, tentative assertion, and tricky/elusiveness. The primary purpose behind the use of these epistemic modal verbs was to effectively persuade the target audience regarding Bush's activities and objectives in resisting and ultimately eliminating Saddam Hussein's regime, rather than solely informing them. Furthermore, the data also demonstrate the significance of providing comprehensive explanations that go beyond the scope of epistemic modal verbs in generating public agreement and support, assuring the public, and effectively addressing concerns raised by opponents. These additional factors contribute to the overall persuasive impact of political speeches. In summary, this study sheds light on the persuasive strategies employed by George W. Bush during the Iraq War, elucidating the recurring presence of specific functions of epistemic modal verbs in his speeches and emphasizing the importance of comprehensive explanations in garnering public support and addressing opposing viewpoints. This study reveals the novel and coherent persuasive power of epistemic modal verbs in Bush's communication strategy. 摘要 关于伊拉克战争进行的大量研究一直强调围绕其合理性的持续争议，甚至直到今天也是如此 。作为回应，一些政治和语言研究深入研究了这个问题，试图了解乔治·瓦·布什如何说服国际社 会支持推翻伊拉克政府。这项特别研究的重点是分析政治演讲，特别是国情咨文和战争演讲，因 为这些类型在塑造公众对伊拉克战争的舆论方面发挥着关键作用。该分析采用定量和定性相结合 的方法，使用赛义德的 [1] 框架来检查认知情态动词的使用。研究结果表明，乔治·W·布什采用了 各种说服策略，严重依赖两种类型中认知情态动词的十种重复功能。这些功能包括预期、断言、 假设、信念、对冲、煽动、可能性/概率、预测、试探性断言和棘手/难以捉摸。使用这些认知情 态动词的主要目的是有效说服目标受众了解布什抵抗并最终消灭萨达姆·侯赛因政权的活动和目标 ，而不仅仅是告知他们。此外，数据还证明了提供超越认知情态动词范围的全面解释对于获得公 众同意和支持、让公众放心、有效解决反对者提出的担忧具有重要意义。这些额外因素有助于提 高政治演讲的整体说服力。总之，这项研究揭示了乔治·瓦·布什在伊拉克战争期间所采用的说服 策略，阐明了他的演讲中反复出现的认知情态动词的特定功能，并强调了全面解释在获得公众支 持和解决反对意见方面的重要性。观点。这项研究揭示了布什沟通策略中认知情态动词新颖而连 贯的说服力。 关键词: 政治话语、认知情态动词、乔治·瓦·布什、2003 年伊拉克战争、萨达姆·侯赛因
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.