Modal agony

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:40 pm

Andrew Patterson wrote:
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

Happy to see you are still working on it. One thing, if I may, you say that deontic "must" is internal obligation. Could you please explain what you mean by "internal obligation"?

Many thanks.

And would you think about including bouletic modality in your paper?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 7:07 pm

Metal wrote:

Happy to see you are still working on it. One thing, if I may, you say that deontic "must" is internal obligation. Could you please explain what you mean by "internal obligation"?

Many thanks.

And would you think about including bouletic modality in your paper?

That's the thing, I haven't been. It appears that I haven't updated the modal page since June 07, 2005.

As for what I mean by internal and external obligation, that is among other things precisely what we have been trying to determine in this thread.

I think internal obligation is the duty felt by the speaker when the speaker is the subject. That is it is a psychological state as you say.

That would suggest a feeling of empathy when speaking on behalf of others. However, I do not think that it is clear whether the implication is that the speaker is referring to his or her own sense of duty if that person was in the others situation or that of the person who is actually in that situation. I think use may vary from person to person, situation to situation and even emotional development. Then again, it is possible to use must deontically about an inanimate object. Comments please, I'm not quite there.

Bouletic modality is a lot easier that's been in my link:
http://www.geocities.com/endipatterson/ ... erlap.html, since September 27, 2005.
You don't need to look it up, this is what it says:

There are two main groups of verbs that can be followed by to, the object or to and the infinitive:
1. verbs with suppletive action (often called boulomaic modality, don't ask me why it isn't called "suppletive modality", linguists just like to complicate things at times): Beg, Expect, Need and Want; and
2. verbs expressing emotional attitude preceded by "would":
Would hate, Would like, Would love, Would prefer.

I don't think I actually want to add to that, but I really ought to remove the under construction sign on that page and add a "home link".

You might want to add something to that or critisise what I wrote.
Is group 2. bouletic as well?
That might be worth discussing.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 11:04 am

As for what I mean by internal and external obligation, that is among other things precisely what we have been trying to determine in this thread.

I think it is the duty felt by the speaker when the speaker is the subject. That is it is a psychological state as you say.

Which are your referring to there? External or internal?

Then again, it is possible to use must deontically about an inanimate object.

I'm not sure how, unless it was like this:

The car must arrive at the gates a moment before the president steps out of the door.

which is really referring to the driver.

Is group 2. bouletic as well?

I'd say so.

Football. Director to coach:

D: I would hate to see our team lose this weekend.

M: I'll do my best.

D: Good. I would hate to see you lose your job.

In the first example, expectation or desire is implied. Not sure about the second.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 11:14 am

Sorry, metal, that was poorly written. I was referring to internal obligation. I have replaced "it" with "internal obligation" to make it clear now.

I think that when "must" is used to inanimate objects we are mearly anthropomorphising them. One might speak to your computer, "Oh come on, you must work, I've got to get this assignment in toby tomorrow." I don't think that that is a sensible line to persue for too long, clearly it only expresses the speaker's frustration that the object doesn't work.

So you think that verbs in part 2 are bouletic. Could you tell me why you think that? Do you think that bouletic is just another word for supplicative? Neither of these words is a word that you bandy about every day, but at least supplicative is related to supplication, which while not being an every day word, is not quite as obscure as bouletic which appears to be a word coined because they didn't think a word existed to describe the concept.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:59 pm

Going back to the bagels. I can now see that "mustn't" can be the epistemic negative of "must" but there are plenty of situations where "can't" rings truer:

"The shops are shut so it must be Sunday"

"It ____n't be because ......"

I may be confusing categories but you can see my reasons for saying that the the negatives have to be treated almost as if there were nine more.

Or is it ten? I should have included "had better"

Andrew I've got a number of queries about your work in progress. You begin another thread and I'll make a start. Otherwise it'd be a big time hijack of this thread.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 1:38 pm

Juan, All the catenatives carry modality. And the different syntactic forms express different modalities. Hence our discussion of bouletic (supplicative) modality.

We are covering old ground here but there is ground left to cover. I would like to have a discussion to systematically determine the meaning of every modal verb in categories A-Q in the modal verb link I mentioned earlier to complete the link if you have the patience to act as a sounding board.

Yes, I would include negatives AND question forms (both positive and negative) "had better" and also "would rather" and "would sooner", as well as rarer or dialectical forms such as "had best" and "ought better".

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 1:57 pm

Ok, but I'm starting a new job in a new town any day now so might be a tad busy.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 2:24 pm

You're lucky. It pretty well looks like I'll be starting several new jobs because none of them alone will have enough hours.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 5:25 pm

Andrew Patterson wrote:Juan, All the catenatives carry modality. And the different syntactic forms express different modalities. Hence our discussion of bouletic (supplicative) modality.

Typo alert!

And, sorry to say, I like the term "bouletic.

Here's a clearer idea of it:

Bouletic modality (in view of what I want).

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 7:35 pm

metal56 wrote: And, sorry to say, I like the term "bouletic.

No need to appologise.

I'm seeing the term "sentimental" associated with or given as an alternative to the term "bouletic". Presumably they are using it in the sense of desire rather than ET phone home.

Wants and needs can also be "matter of fact" - as in the sense used in "war on want" and this is what I meant by "supplicative".

Perhaps bouletic modality should be viewed as two different modalities or as a continuum from supplicative to sentimental.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 11:26 pm

Steve's friend at university: Stevie must attend the lecture on Gramsci.
Steve's professor: Stephen must attend the lecture on Gramsci.

Is "must" deontic in both those sentences?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 11:51 pm

metal56 wrote:Steve's friend at university: Stevie must attend the lecture on Gramsci.
Steve's professor: Stephen must attend the lecture on Gramsci.

Is "must" deontic in both those sentences?

Coates likes to talk about ambiguity vs merger both sentences display modal ambiguity (which may nevertheless be rendered unambiguous by the speaker's tone of voice.) He either means
a) Knowing Steve as I do, Steve would love this lecture, or
b) It is a compulsory part of the course.

However, I would concede that sense a) is more likely from Steve's friend and sense b) is more likely from the professor.

IMHO, sense a) is bouletic and internal b) is deontic and external.

However, we could just say it is volitionally deontic ie a merger of volition which is dynamic and deontic.

Both a) and b) display root modality.

I still think we need a term for matter of fact wants and needs, do you?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 6:29 am

IMHO, sense a) is bouletic and internal b) is deontic and external.

However, we could just say it is volitionally deontic ie a merger of volition which is dynamic and deontic.

Interesting. I have always taken non-epistemic "must" to be internal in every use. Is it not true that "have to" is external/objective and "must" internal/subjective - in their non-epistemic use that is?

Also, what's your opinion regarding this statement?

Modality is always the expression of a judgement (an opinion, a feeling, etc.) about an event.
Larreya & Rivière

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 10:15 am

Andrew, please confirm: is it suppletive or supplicative? You used both terms in your posts here.

Juan, All the catenatives carry modality. And the different syntactic forms express different modalities. Hence our discussion of bouletic (supplicative) modality.

1. verbs with suppletive action (often called boulomaic modality, don't ask me why it isn't called "suppletive modality", linguists just like to complicate things at times): Beg, Expect, Need and Want; and
2. verbs expressing

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 1:22 pm

Steve's friend at university: Stevie must attend the lecture on Gramsci.
Steve's professor: Stephen must attend the lecture on Gramsci.

Is "must" deontic in both those sentences?

Can be epistemic in both cases, though contextually less likely in the second case.