Basic semantic meanings of modal auxiliaries.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 10:40 pm

Context cannot be avoided, but if it is valuable to speak of a core, doesn't that core have to be noticable to native speakers? It would be the base form which they mined the word when they took it out for more poetic excursions. So, ask them to identify the abstract meaning of a given word.

By the way .........."He will go" or "Dogs will bark".

Sentences cannot come more simply than this - for one we would guess a future meaning, the other not. Since you say everything comes from context, what meaning does it have to say that "will" takes a future meaning from context?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:05 pm

woodcutter wrote:Context cannot be avoided, but if it is valuable to speak of a core, doesn't that core have to be noticable to native speakers? It would be the base form which they mined the word when they took it out for more poetic excursions. So, ask them to identify the abstract meaning of a given word.

By the way .........."He will go" or "Dogs will bark".

Sentences cannot come more simply than this - for one we would guess a future meaning, the other not. Since you say everything comes from context, what meaning does it have to say that "will" takes a future meaning from context?

<Context cannot be avoided, but if it is valuable to speak of a core, doesn't that core have to be noticable to native speakers?>

By "noticable", do you mean explicitly noticeable? I mean, do you want the native layperson to be able to put that core meaning into words before we language analysts can say that there is a core?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:09 pm

woodcutter wrote:Context cannot be avoided, but if it is valuable to speak of a core, doesn't that core have to be noticable to native speakers? It would be the base form which they mined the word when they took it out for more poetic excursions. So, ask them to identify the abstract meaning of a given word.

By the way .........."He will go" or "Dogs will bark".

Sentences cannot come more simply than this - for one we would guess a future meaning, the other not. Since you say everything comes from context, what meaning does it have to say that "will" takes a future meaning from context?

By the way .........."He will go" or "Dogs will bark".

The future reading there comes from a combination of "will" and the verb "go".

Try this:

He will go on.

Future, or persistent habit?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:55 pm

Earlier on, I listed the modals ordered according to meaning. I would suggest that if you determine what meaning you use to do this and you will get as close to a core meaning as you can get.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 12:09 am

I'm not sure what you mean by core anymore. You don't like my definitions - what's yours? Do you think that it is something that anyone can see, but only highly trained linguists can verbalize?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 12:22 am

woodcutter wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by core anymore. You don't like my definitions - what's yours? Do you think that it is something that anyone can see, but only highly trained linguists can verbalize?

I don't have any definition for core meaning, nor am I sure that it exists. I mearly contend that meaning changes in a way that makes it possible to order the modals according to meaning.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:44 am

Andrew Patterson wrote:Earlier on, I listed the modals ordered according to meaning. I would suggest that if you determine what meaning you use to do this and you will get as close to a core meaning as you can get.

Earlier on, I listed the modals ordered according to meaning.

Was that semantic meaning or communicative meaning?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:10 am

Metal wrote quoting me

Earlier on, I listed the modals ordered according to meaning.

Was that semantic meaning or communicative meaning?

I would have though that by definition all meaning is semantic as semantic means pertaining to meaning. All meaning is communicative too as whe whole point of assigning meaning to a word is so that one can communicate that meaning. Perhaps I'm missing sth here. Is this a matter of emphasis?

Either way, here's the list again, perhaps you could let me if I ordered them semantically or communicatively.
I just felt that there was a natural order and found it later elsewhere:

can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, had better, must.

Again, if anyone prefers a different order, please let me know.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:48 am

Andrew Patterson wrote:Metal wrote quoting me
Earlier on, I listed the modals ordered according to meaning.

Was that semantic meaning or communicative meaning?
I would have though that by definition all meaning is semantic as semantic means pertaining to meaning. All meaning is communicative too as whe whole point of assigning meaning to a word is so that one can communicate that meaning. Perhaps I'm missing sth here. Is this a matter of emphasis?

Either way, here's the list again, perhaps you could let me if I ordered them semantically or communicatively.
I just felt that there was a natural order and found it later elsewhere:

can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, had better, must.

Again, if anyone prefers a different order, please let me know.

I, and quite a few other speakers, see semantic meaning as contributing to communicative meaning. If I may add a quote from M Lewis here:

We define as communicative meaning the way a particular utterance will be interpreted in a particular context. Several factors will contribute to this communicative meaning:

1. The semantics of the words and structures used.
2. The expectations of the speaker in the situation.
3. The expectations of the listener in the situation.
4. The environment in which the language is used.

...............

He goes on to say:

In normal life, we are exclusively concerned with communicative meaning. We have no interest in the communicative process itself, and in the difference between the fundamental semantics of words and phrases. If, however, we wish to study the language, and search for the underlying meaning of a particular form, we need to try to separate the contribution made to total meaning by the semantics of the form from the contributions of the expectation and context.

The English Verb, page 39.

...........

I'll take a look at your list again.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:06 am

Andrew Patterson wrote:Metal wrote quoting me
Earlier on, I listed the modals ordered according to meaning.

Was that semantic meaning or communicative meaning?
I would have though that by definition all meaning is semantic as semantic means pertaining to meaning. All meaning is communicative too as whe whole point of assigning meaning to a word is so that one can communicate that meaning. Perhaps I'm missing sth here. Is this a matter of emphasis?

Either way, here's the list again, perhaps you could let me if I ordered them semantically or communicatively.
I just felt that there was a natural order and found it later elsewhere:

can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, had better, must.

Again, if anyone prefers a different order, please let me know.

Some of them are difficult to place but:
can, could, may, might, would rather, would sooner, will, would, shall, should, had better, must

represents an order of meaning that I feel certain about.

Not sure about your choice of ordering.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:26 am

Metal wrote:

Not sure about your choice of ordering.

It's the placing of "would rather" and "would sooner", isn't it?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:32 am

Andrew Patterson wrote:Metal wrote:
Not sure about your choice of ordering.
It's the placing of "would rather" and "would sooner", isn't it?

Not really. It's also this ordering:

can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, had better, must.

What is the logic behind it?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:48 am

Andrew Patterson wrote:
woodcutter wrote:
I don't have any definition for core meaning, nor am I sure that it exists. I mearly contend that meaning changes in a way that makes it possible to order the modals according to meaning.
It is common practice in typological studies to treat grammatical catego-ries as having a core and a periphery, as noted by standard handbooks such as Comrie (1989: 37–38 and 106–110) and Croft (1990: 66–67 and 124–127). The prototype strategy was explicitly proposed for English grammar by Huddleston (1984: 72), and is adopted in a number of recent grammars of English, such as Greenbaum (1996: 92) and Biber et al. (1999: 59). It is applied to modality in English by Huddleston and Pullum (2002), who say that “modality … is not sharply delimited or subdivided, so that we shall need to make reference to the concept of prototypical features and to allow for indeterminacy at the boundaries of the categories” (2002: 172).

Degrees of modality. Raphael Salkie.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:52 am

Metal wrote:

Not really. It's also this ordering:
can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, had better, must.
What is the logic behind it?

I don't know the rational behind the ordering in "In Company" which happens to be the same as mine but here's my rational:

All modals are put in a proximal-remote pair where they exist.

can is to do with ability
could is to do with past ability but also with uncertainty
may is to do with uncertainty and
might is the remote counterpart of may
would rather is to do with preference or choice
would sooner is a more definite choice
will is to do with volition - more definite again
would is it's remote counterpart
shall is also to do with volition but is used for advice and suggestion too
should is to do with suggestion and recommendation and is the remote counterpart of shall (It is beginning to move away from that now, though.)
had better is similar to should but with a stronger sense of obligation
must is to do with obligation

I appreciate the difficulty with "would rather and "would sooner" as they doesn't seem to be as clearly a single lexical item as "had better" there is an overtone of the normal use of "would" whereas "had" is not used in any conventional sense in "had better"

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:08 am

I reproduce Metals first post here to compare the order that Lewis used:

Please remember, we are talking about the basic semantic meaning. In context, these auxiliaries take on wider meanings, but it is the basic meaning I want to discuss.

Paraphrased.

Can = I assert that it is possible that ...
Could = I assert that it is "remotely" possible that ...

May = If I have anything to do with it, it is possible that ...
Might = If I have anything to do with it, it is "remotely" possible that ...

Must = I assert that it is necessary that ...

Will = Given my perception of the immediate situation, it is inevitable that ...

Would = Given the (hypothetical) situation which I perceive at the moment of speaking, the action described is also inevitably true.

Shall = According to my perception of the present situation, it is, if it's anything to do with me, inevitable that ...

From The English Verb by M Lewis. LTP 1986.

Should is dealt with separately as it is a far more complex auxiliary and has many meanings.

I note that can, could, may and might are in the same order as I listed; and that will, would, shall and should are in the same order too. He puts must between might and will, however.