Modal agony

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:02 am

"Oh, Sunday's out because I have to go to church" (not a child speaking)
The pistol is there, but who's holding it?

Some people would say, God - not so much a pistol but the threat of eternal damnation in a pit of burning sulphur.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 2:00 pm

JuanTwoThree wrote:

What about:

"Oh, Sunday's out because I have to go to church" (not a child speaking)

The pistol is there, but who's holding it?

Is it a shotgun wedding?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 2:02 pm

Some people would say, God - not so much a pistol but the threat of eternal damnation in a pit of burning sulphur.[/quote]

Or your neighbours - if the story takes place in small town America.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 6:58 am

Juan wrote:

There's a sort of "don't kill the messenger" when "have to" is used: Johnny has to go to bed at 9.00 because we've noticed that he's sleepy the next morning so although we are the authority in this matter we are presenting the facts as if we weren't. It's not some arbitrary whim of ours, unlike:

"All 3rd formers must in future use the side gate. The Principal"

Same type of authority figure but this time the writer can't get out of being the originator. There is no appeal to common sense or practice.

Perhaps the clearest use of "have to" is responce to overwhelming circumstances. A group arguing about whether they should go on or turn back find a bridge has fallen down. Wanting to show that the've one the argument, someone says, "Now, we have to go back." Must would not be likely here.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 8:56 am

Good point. A circumstance out of our control is very much a "have to".

I love modals and what they involve. They'll keep us all in a job for a very long time however good the translation technology may get.

I've always thought that there's a missing piece in the jigsaw. We seem to be prepared to use "will have to not" but are reticent about "have/has to not":

Visitors to the UK have to not drive on the right.

It's ok but we cast around for another way of saying it. I know, "have to drive on the left" is the easiest way out.

By the way I'm not sure about Googling for frequency. Exact phrase "will have to not" throws up 19,300 hits when you do it from Spanish Google and 18,100 when you use Google in English, which is odd. I saw a lot of "not only" and sure enough "will have to not only" is about half of them.

Doing it another way, "will have to not" without "only" gives 789000 hits. Odder still. That's more like the numbers I was expecting in the first place. How can you filter out a word and get more hits than you started with? Am I missing something?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 10:33 am

JuanTwoThree wrote:
How can you filter out a word and get more hits than you started with? Am I missing something?

I tried: "will have to not" -only and got 83,300,000 páginas en español y inglés de "will have to not" -only.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 11:19 am

Incredibly long link

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 11:31 am

I used advanced search, exact phrase match, without the word, and got 789,000.

That was "any language". Which is silly because it's English.

But with "English only" you get 35,700. Strange

789000 again if I put the phrase in speech marks and use - (either the hyphen and the minus sign, it doesn't matter).

So I don't think that Google can be used for this crude concordancing. Unless I'm doing something wrong.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 11:45 am

Another way to go about it is to search the BNC with:

have to not [v*]

This is the result: HAVE TO NOT LOSE 1

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 11:58 am

Juan, remember what Johnny Mercer wrote:

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between

These are wise words, "have to not" does the opposite of this.
It may be logically grammatical but it encourages muddled thinking.
Do not encourage the use of this phrase.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:13 pm

Yes but it's out there. Imagine a list of prerequisites for a camping thingy:

It has to be light. It has to be strong. It has to be brown. It has to be easy to carry. It has to not cost too much.

Seems ok to me.

BTW harping on about google.

"it has to not"-only gets more hits than "it has to not" by itself so I've gone right off google.

The BNC doesn't seem to be much cop either, if that was its only example . If you can google (a varying number of) examples then shouldn't somebody be laboriously one finger typing at least some of them into the BNC?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 12:32 pm

You're on a hiding to nothing trying to use common words for concordancing with google. you might just get somewhere if you select "exact phrase" in "advanced", though.

"Has to not" does exist, I never said it didn't it is perfectly grammatical though mostly inelegant English.

I take your point about lists where there is a parrallelism issue but normally you can use a negative prefix. "It has to" could be the platform.

It has to be:
a) light,
b) strong,
c) brown,
d) easy to carry, and
e) inexpensive.

"It must not be" could be used where there is no direct opposite.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:18 pm

Yes, exact phrase match is what I used. The oddity is that when you add in "without the words" you get more not fewer results.

I agree with you about "have to not". It's correct and crops up in certain situations. What I mean is that it's odd that it's seen as cumbersome when it hasn't got an ideal alternatve.

So you would use "must not be" alongside "has to be" in exactly the same context. Me too. But does it make a nonsense of there being a difference between "must" and "have to" if "it must not be expensive" means exactly the same as "it has to be cheap"?

The answer perhaps is that there are 18 modals, including the negatives. The negatives can't be judged as merely the "not" version. After all the opposite of "12 rings. It must be midnight" is not "11 rings. It mustn't be midnight"

I love modals!

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:22 pm

JuanTwoThree wrote:. After all the opposite of "12 rings. It must be midnight" is not "11 rings. It mustn't be midnight"
Why ever not?

Mmm, fresh bagels. It must be Sunday.

Aww, no fresh bagels. It mustn't be Sunday.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:29 pm

Juan wrote:

The answer perhaps is that there are 18 modals, including the negatives. The negatives can't be judged as merely the "not" version. After all the opposite of "12 rings. It must be midnight" is not "11 rings. It mustn't be midnight"

Not sure I follow you here, are you referring to can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, and must and their negatives as the 18 modals?

There are more than that. Juan. I tried to get you lot interested in a project I was working on to categorise ALL the meanings of modal verbs. That project is on hold. How far I got is at:
http://www.geocities.com/endipatterson/Modal.html
Which is an elaboration of the ideas at:
http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/issue1/modalfrm.htm

I might add more categories such as questions with modals (which of course can be positive or negative.)
Perhaps you would like to help me complete the project, Juan.