Modality

Unit 5 Part A
 Features in Tense head:
 Time (Present, Past, [future])

 Aspect (Perfective, Imperfective)

 Modality (Epistemic, Deontic, ø)

 MODALITY
 The grammaticalization of the speaker’s attitudes and
opinions (Palmer).
 A modalized statement is non-factual.

o You mustn’t smoke (attitude)

o It might rain tomorrow (opinion).
o She smokes / It’s raining (zero modality: factual)
Modal Auxiliaries in English:
 Can / Could
 May / Might
 Shall / Should
 Will /Would
 Must
 Ought to
 Need / Dare (modal behaviour in int & neg forms)

Semi-auxiliaries and periphrastic forms:

 Have to
 Be able to
Modality can be expressed by
categories other than modal auxiliaries:
 He may have gone to Paris. (modal aux)

 Perhaps he went to Paris. (adverb)

 It is possible that he went to Paris. (adjective)

I reckon that he went to Paris. (lexical verb)

 Modality

EPISTEMIC DEONTIC
Concerned with matters of Concerned with the
‘knowledge’, ‘belief’ or speaker’s attitude towards
‘opinion’. The speaker’s the performance of acts by
degree of certainty about the themselves or others.
occurrence of an event.
Epistemic Modality:
Derived from the Greek word ‘episteme’, meaning ‘understanding’ or ‘knowledge’. Interpreted as showing the status of the speaker’s understanding or knowledge; this
includes both their own judgements and the kind of warrant they have for what they say.

1- Logical Necessity.

2 - Possibility.

3- Theoretical Possibility

4- Ability

5- Hypothesis /hypothetical
 Logical Necessity:
What is epistemically ‘necessary’given the evidence observed or known.
 MUST / CAN’T / CAN? [THE ONLY POSSIBLE JUDGEMENT]
 SHOULD/ OUGHT/ (HAVE TO)
 WILL [A REASONALBE JUDGEMENT]

1. He must be at work. (It is 10 am and I know he works from 9-5)

2. He can’t be at work. ( It is 7 pm)
3. Can he be at work yet? (I express my doubt about the truth of the event)
Cf: The mountains should / ought to be visible from here.
These plants should / ought to reach maturity after five years.

4. She will have had her dinner by now.

5. That’ll be the postman. [on hearing the doorbell ring]

Note: The past of these events is formed with the aspectual auxiliary HAVE.
They can also be combined with progressive BE to encode imperfective aspect.
6. The match must / should/ ought to / has to have ended by now.
7. It must be raining / It must have been raining all night.
Possibility
What is epistemically possible
 MAY (not)/ MIGHT (not)/ COULD /WOULD
1. He may/might/could be there (it’s just possible that he’s
there).
2. He may/ might not be there. (it is possible that he is not
there.’)
Compare: He can’t be there. [=’It is not possible that he is
there.’]

Note: The past of these events is also formed with the aspectual auxiliary HAVE.

They can also be combined with progressive BE to encode imperfective aspect.

 Theoretical Possibility
It expresses the possibity of events of that nature happening, rather than the actual
possibility of such an occurence at a specific time.

1. Even expert drivers can make mistakes.

2. It can be very cold in Norway at his time of year.
Cf: If you’re travelling to Norway next week bring a thick jacket. The weather
forecast says it could be very cold (the actual possibility of such an occurence) .

The interrogative form is unlikely and the negative form is not possible.
Ability
A skill or capability on the part of the subject referent

 CAN/ COULD/ be able to

1. Can you remember where they live?

2. Magda could speak three languages by the age of six.
3. They say Bill can cook better than his wife.
4. I can’t drive very well.

For the ‘ability’ sense, can/could may be paraphrased by ‘be

able to’, ‘be capable of’ or ‘know how to’..).
Note: in the past affirmative these forms are not synonymous:
5. When I was a child I could climb trees.
6. He was able to climb Mount Everest last month.
Hypothesis
The main clause in conditional sentences expresses a conterfactual event known as hypothetical.

 WOULD/ WOULDN’T

If I had the chance, I would change jobs.

I wouldn’t have known it was you if you hadn’t told me.
(the possiblity is envisaged as counterfactual. The subordinate (if) clause is in the
SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD)
Deontic Modality
From Greek deont- ‘being needed or necessary, relating to duty and obligation as ethical concepts.
It concerns the speakers’ attitude towards their own or other people’s actions. It also has to do
with the effect an utterance has on the speaker him/herself, and/or on a second or third person .

1. Obligation: the expression of the speaker’s or someone

else’s power over one’s or other people’s actions.

2. Willingness: the expression of the peaker’s or someone

else’s will for an event to take place.

3. Permission: the expression of or request for the license of

an event being perfomed.
 1. Obligation
 A. Compulsion (strong obligation):
o Must [obligation]/mustn’t [prohibition]
o Have (got) to [obligation]
1. I’m afraid I have (got) to go now./ I must go now.
2. You must be back at ten o’clock. / I’ve got to be back at ten o’clock.
Have (got) to is felt to be more impersonal than must, in that it tends to lack the implication that the speaker is
in authority. Where must implies ‘self-obligation’, have (got) to implies ‘obligation by external forces’.
o Haven’t got to / don’t have to [absence of obligation]
o Had to / didn’t have to= past forms
o ‘Must’ does not have a past or future form. ‘Have to’ is used instead.
3. Productivity will have to be improved, if the nation is to be prosperous
o Needn’t / Need?= only expresses interrogative or negative compulsion.
4. Need you go now? / I needn’t go yet.
o In the past, two forms coexist, with different meanings:
5. I didn’t need to buy the paper [there was no need/I didn’t have to] because someone else did
it for me.
6. I needn’t have bought the paper [I bought it ], my dad had already bought it.
 1. Obligation
 B. Reasonable Obligation (mild obligation)
SHOULD (N’T)/ OUGHT (N’T) TO

1. You should / ought to do as he says.

2. The floor should / ought to be washed at least once a week.
o Like must [=obligation], should and ought to generally imply
the speaker’s authority; but unlike must, they do not imply that
the speaker has confidence that the recommendation will be
carried out. In fact, with the perfective aspect, should and ought
to typically have the stronger implication that the
recommendation has not been carried out:
3. They should/ ought to have met her at the station. (...but they didn’t.)
 1. Obligation
 C. Legal Obligation
SHALL/ SHALL NOT

1. The tenant shall inform of any changes.

 2. Willingness
 WILL/ WON’T/ WOULD/WOULDN’T/ SHALL/ SHAN’T
 MAY (VOLITIVE)

1) INTENTION
1. I’ll write as soon as I can.
2. We won’t stay longer than two hours.
3. The manager said he would phone me after lunch.
4. John shall have the book tomorrow. [the speaker promises that John will receive the book.]

2) WEAK VOLITION
Will/ Would you help me to address these letters?
4. I’ll do it, if you like.
This meaning is common in requests and offers. The use of would is more polite than the use of will.

5. We will/ shall uphold the wishes of the people ( Shall is a formal alternative to will after I or we)
6. Shall I/ we deliver the goods to your home address? [= Do you want me/us to...?]
7. What shall we do this evening? Shall we go to the theatre?

In questions containing shall I/ we, shall consults the wishes of the addressee, It is suitable for making offers and suggestions about shared
activities. In such questions shall cannot regularly be replaced by will.

3) STRONG VOLITION (INSISTENCE)

8. If you will go out without your overcoat, what can you expect?
9. She would keep interrupting me.

This implies willfulness on the part of the subject referent. The auxiliary is always stressed, and cannot be contracted to ‘ll or ‘d. In this case the
past form would expresses past time, rather that tentativeness or politeness.
4) “VOLITIVE” MAY (ARCHAIC)
10. May the best man win / May the force be with you.
 3. Permission
 CAN/COULD/ MAY/ MIGHT
These four modal auxiliaries express different levels of formality.

1. You can/ can’t go out now.

2. You may (not) go out now.

3. Can I say something?

4. Could I say something?
5. May I say something?
6. Might I say something?

A speaker cannot only express their own attitudes, they can also ask the addressee about theirs
-whether they consider an action deontically permissible.
 References:
 “MODALITY” (Apunte de Cátedra)
 PALMER, F. Mood & Modality. Ch 1, 2, 3, 6