Basic semantic meanings of modal auxiliaries.

[Stephen Jones]

Absolutely right! Don't forget, we're talking about language here. Not physics.

I'm beginning to wonder what language you're talking about though. Doesn't appear to be English. Is the Law of Conservation of Energy also somebody's personal opinion?
Energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.

[LarryLatham]

[LarryLatham]

The simplest, easiest way is usually the right way. Language makers are people, and people rightly want to do the most with the least effort. The simplest thing to remember is the speaker always calls the shots.

And you've just pulled the ground from under your feet, because if this is true for every sentence, then it cannot possibly be a distinguishing mark of modality.

It is not a distinguishing mark for modality, Stephen. It is a distinguishing mark for language. All language is invented by either a speaker or an author. That seems, as I said earlier, to be self-evident. Subjects of verbs do not invent the language ( unless the speaker is talking about himself). Therefore, if there is a "can", or a "could", or a "will", or indeed any word at all in the sentence, it is the speaker who put it there, and not the subject of the verb.

So "She could see the bus pulling away" is different from "She saw the bus pulling away" because the speaker said it differently. Speakers do not do this randomly...there must be a reason. Context most commonly supplies the reason. In this case, perhaps "She" was inside the bus terminal, but near a window, and so it made sense to the speaker to judge that "She could see the bus pulling away." In any case, what we must see in this comparison, is that "She saw the bus pulling away" is a pure statement of fact, whether or not it is true. In contrast, "She could see the bus pulling away" is not only a statement of fact, it also contains an overlay of speaker judgment about what "She" was able to see.

Larry Latham

[Stephen Jones]

In contrast, "She could see the bus pulling away" is not only a statement of fact, it also contains an overlay of speaker judgment about what "She" was able to see.

You keep saying this Larry but there is not a scrap of evidence for it. It is not even clear that there is any difference at all in meaning between the two sentences.

In general we use 'can/could' with verbs of perception because of the taboo against using them with the continuous. I suspect we use 'can/could' with perception verbs when we want to talk more about the process than the result, but there is one thing I am 100% sure of, and that is that speaker judgement doesn't enter into it.

[LarryLatham]

OK, then, Stephen. You say "potato" and I say "potahto." I see it one way and you see it another. I guess we'll just have to leave it here, because I am just as 100% sure that speaker judgment is exactly what is about...100% of the time. (But I am still open to argument...if the argument makes any sense to me).

This being the case, we're getting nowhere here.

Larry Latham

By the way:

In general we use 'can/could' with verbs of perception because of the taboo against using them with the continuous.

She could be running in tomorrow's race.
Naw! She can't be running!

[LarryLatham]

I note that there are some 800 views of this topic at this point. Is that 100 views apiece for 8 people, or are there a whole slew of you out there looking in on us with our pants down. Anyone else out there with an opinion on this, or who can point out where either Stephen or I (or anyone else) have our heads in the sand?

Don't be shy. You can see how vigorously Stephen and I oppose each other, and yet we'll both survive.

Larry Latham

[Stephen Jones]

She could be running in tomorrow's race.
Naw! She can't be running!

I was referring to the taboo against verbs of perception being used in the continous, not modals.
We say
I'm watching TV.
but
I can see a cat in the garden

I'm listening to music
but
I can't hear you.

I suspect we are seeing the continous used with these verbs more now than before, but often they take on a specific meaning. If you say to somebody
I'm not hearing you
it's not the same as saying
I can't hear you

Incidentally there are restrictions on using the continous and perfective aspects with modal auxiliaries. Normally it is only done with epistemic modality. I think with the perfect aspect this is an absolute rule, but have no books readily available to check.

It is because of constraints like this, that we know epistemic modality is not something made up by academic linguists to confound mortals with jargon.

[revel]

Good afternoon.

"It is because of constraints like this, that we know epistemic modality is not something made up by academic linguists to confound mortals with jargon." (Steven Jones)

Fine, I personally don't believe that there are linguists out there whose objective in the study and description of language is the confounding of the rest of us with their jargon. That does not, however, remove the fact that this jargon is confounding me. I'm not totally on Larry's side, and considering the way either I've been writing or interpreted by others, am not sure he needs my support, but I understand what he is trying to communicate in his posts. The jargon always seems to be pulling the language out of context (and I'm not saying that that should not be done) and categorizing the language (and I'm not saying that that should not be done) but a word looked up in the dictionary must be fully interpreted and understood in all the meanings presented in order to choose the correct meaning for the context in which we found the word and did not understand its meaning in the first place. (Uuff, I suppose I ought to correct that last sentence, but won't just to see the looks on your faces!)

I can't say if Mr Jones' comments are hogwash or not (and wouldn't anyway, as he is firm and consistant in his presentation, though he's right, the British don't seem as concerned with good typing and punctuation as this American tries to be.... ) as the jargon is right there in the middle and I'm hard headed and it just isn't clear to me. I've read the comments with a true interest but the words just bump around in my head, the decontextualized examples all begin to sound the same, and if I say that I don't see the use in the classroom, I could be accused of not being a real, live, applied linguist.

In any case, the debate has been lively and interesting!

(yes, I have indeed come back to fix up a few things in this post--can you spot the seven differences?)

peace,
revel.

[Andrew Patterson]

"She could see the bus pulling away"

Sorry to complicate matters here, but there seems to be more going on here than just dynamic modality but I don't think it is epistemic or deontic, either.

To my mind using "could" in this way implies that not only was she:
1. able to see the bus pulling away, but
2. she did in fact see the bus pulling away.

Compare this to,
3. "A true gentleman is a man who can play the bagpipes but doesn't."

A few comentators have said that there is a fourth type of modality to do with facts called existential modality.

If we say that the statement in (1) is dynamic modality, I think (2) might be an example of existential modality.

[LarryLatham]

Revel's comment above make a point that should not be ignored (well, maybe several points,:) but I am thinking here about one of them).

No single decontextualized sentence can be understood.

She could see the bus pulling away.

This might mean what Andy surmises, that she actually did see it pulling away.

It might also mean that she was situated in a place where she would be able to see it pull away when it did, for example, sometime in the next few minutes.

It might also mean that she is thinking about where to locate herself tomorrow when she takes her lover to the bus station to go to war, and she wants to be able to see him for every possible moment.

The point is, we cannot know what the sentence means without context. Ascribing particular meanings to a word in the sentence, then, is absurd unless the sentence is in context (as it will be for the interpreter of the sentence in normal language use). The best we can do is attribute a general meaning, which will have several possible interpretations depending on the context. That is exactly what Lewis, et.al. is suggesting with the idea of a "core meaning". This kind of "core meaning" cannot be fixed with respect to its particulars until it is used in a real communication.

Larry

[Stephen Jones]

Sorry to complicate matters here, but there seems to be more going on here than just dynamic modality but I don't think it is epistemic or deontic, either.

To my mind using "could" in this way implies that not only was she:
1. able to see the bus pulling away, but
2. she did in fact see the bus pulling away.

I would say there is less going on here than you think, not more.
She could see the bus pulling away
is to all intents and purposes the same as
She saw the bus pulling away.

Compare this to,
3. "A true gentleman is a man who can play the bagpipes but doesn't."

A few comentators have said that there is a fourth type of modality to do with facts called existential modality.

If we say that the statement in (1) is dynamic modality, I think (2) might be an example of existential modality. Confused

Consider things less deeply. The type of modality you are referring to in (3) is existential modality (a less recondite example is He can be very helpful.). Treat it as a sub-class of dynamic modality.

Let me repeat Andrew, the advice I gave in one of the threads above. Put any sentence you are unsure of into the third person and ask Who is calling the shots?. (With regard to the modal verb of course).

If the modal verb is a property of the subject of the sentence and not the speaker or the person addressed, then it is dynamic modality.
Examples:
They may help you. Epsitemic modality dealing with possibilty. It is the speaker who is stating their helping is possible, not definite.
They ought to help you. Deontic modality. The speaker is imposing the obligation on them to help you.
Can I come in?Deontic modality, asking for permission from the person addressed.
He can help you.Dynamic modality. The subject is the one with the ability to help.

Huddleston, in "A Students Introduction to English Grammar" says that "dynamic interpretations are somewhat perirpheral to the concept of modality" so perhaps we can say that dynamic modality is what modal auxiliaries manifest when they are not being modal.

[Stephen Jones]

This might mean what Andy surmises, that she actually did see it pulling away.

It might also mean that she was situated in a place where she would be able to see it pull away when it did, for example, sometime in the next few minutes.

It might also mean that she is thinking about where to locate herself tomorrow when she takes her lover to the bus station to go to war, and she wants to be able to see him for every possible moment.

This is getting silly.

Your second two meanings would depend on the sentence being part of a subrodinate clause e.g
She sat/was sitting/wanted to sit where she could see the bus pulling away.
That will give it the sense of ability. It still has nothing to do with the core meaning Lewis assigns to 'could' which is only good for epistemic modality.

Your theory of some kind of metaphysical core meaning which the speaker holds in storage until the context allows him to choose which part of that meaning is appropriate is interesting folk psychology. Against it there are three factors

• (i)It appears to go against research in psycholinguistics which suggests the opposite: that we limit our choices of meaning according to the context, before we start the retrieval process.
  (ii)As this meaning is a metaphysical meaning it is not going to be at all easy to define in words.
  (iii)Even if it were possible to define it in words it is not going to be the same as the bizarre and unhistorical choices that Lewis gives for the core meaning.

[JuanTwoThree]

It's certainly useful to test the waters with other persons than the most common in order to understand modals better: however unusual it may be "Shall you make coffee?" gets us closer to a meaning of shall (it has to be a rhetorical musing that the speaker asks themself (a useful pronoun that may catch on))

Another point to make, this time about about how many modals there are, is that the traditional nine could easily be doubled to eighteen to take into account the sometimes different natures of the negatives : "It must be the postman" pairs with "It can't be the postman" which muddies up those core meanings.

Lastly while I can see the attraction of dynamic modality not being modality as normally understood, I have a problem though with the influence of stress on, for example, "he can help you" . "HE can help you" "he CAN help you" seem to get us back to something more like modality as normally understood. But then there is an assertive and subjective quality about "I AM listening" "I DO understand" (how dare you suggest otherwise) without the slightest suggestion that these are suddenly modal verbs.

)

[woodcutter]

So, Stephen, just assuming for a moment then, as you do in the end of your last post, that we can put a finger on a core meanings, what kind of things would they be?

Simple things like "Shall = Future", and all other meanings are splurged onto it by particular contexts perhaps?

Next time someone asks you lot in class "What does 'I don't like bananas' mean", I hope you stay true to form and give them a lecture about context, and how it depends on whether we are talking about the composition of fruit salads, etc, etc

[Andrew Patterson]

Juan, I'm not quite sure what you mean when you ask the question, "shall you make a coffee," but I absolutely take you point with the negatives, you might tentatively mention questions, "ought better", for instance only exists in negative questions, "oughtn't we better go?"

I'm not sure that this was on the lines of what you were thinking of, but modals seem able to change meaning enough to change grammar:

"Can't", for instance, affects the grammar of "help". Normally "help" can be followed by:
1. the bare infinitive;
2. the object and bare infinitive;
3. the object, to and infinitive; and
4. to and the infinitive.

It is never followed by a gerund unless "can't" is put in front of it. When can't is put in front of it, it can only be followed by:
3. the object, to and bare indinitive; and
5. the gerund.

Similarly, "would" affects the grammar of "hate", "like", "love" and "prefer".

Normally these verbs can be followed by:
3. the object, to and infinitive; and
4. to and the infinitive; or
5. the gerund.

Put "would" in front of them, however, and they can only be followed by:
3. the object, to and infinitive; or
4. to and the infinitive.

It's worth thinking about what meaning is carried by these modals that causes this to happen.