Generic "will".

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:50 pm

First, tell me what YOU mean by a continuum.

Fair point. And now that I'm put to it, it is actually quite hard to define. Dictionary definitions do not seem very good so I'll try my own:

A continuum is the set of gradual changes of a qualitative or quantitative construct that exist together no part of which can be distinguished from neighbouring parts except by arbitrary division. From a mathematical viewpoint, this would mean that the change is non-discrete. Cardinal numbers, for instance, therefore do not form a continuum, but positive numbers, which include an infinite number of fractions in between, do. I'm not sure whether the rate of such changes need to be linear or constant (from the viewpoint of the mathematical discipline of differential calculus) but expect they do.

I think that I can see where Halliday is coming from when he says:

Modality refers to the intermediate choices between yes and no.

In as much as we do in fact have a continuum of choice between yes and no which is only expressable through modality. That is our dilemma: we have a finite number of modals (in fact quite limitedly finite) to express an infinite number of choices between yes and no. Note also that Haliday did not say that that was the whole picture.

The trouble with talking about a "continuum of meaning" (or indeed any continuum formed from a qualitative construct) is that such ideas may not be amenable to mathematical analysis. It is as if we would need a sort of non-numerical calculus to do so. We don't have this problem with continuums formed from quantitative constructs because they are amenable to mathematical analysis.

Now that I have defined a continuum, I realise that fitting the modals into one requires that:
1) the modals be ordered into a natural progression of meaning, and
2) the change of meaning between each modal is constant and linear too. In this way the modals are analagous to the cardinal numbers.

This is complicated, however, by the fact that each modal can itself have many different meanings.

Perhaps a clade doesn't need constant rate of change.

Looking forward to your reply.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:40 pm

Now that I have defined a continuum, I realise that fitting the modals into one requires that:
1) the modals be ordered into a natural progression of meaning, and
2) the change of meaning between each modal is constant and linear too. In this way the modals are analagous to the cardinal numbers.

This is complicated, however, by the fact that each modal can itself have many different meanings.

Looks pretty nigh impossible to me, Andy. If it doesn't walk, or talk, or look like a duck, it's probably not.

Larry Latham

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:43 pm

Larry Latham wrote quoting me:

Now that I have defined a continuum, I realise that fitting the modals into one requires that:
1) the modals be ordered into a natural progression of meaning, and
2) the change of meaning between each modal is constant and linear too. In this way the modals are analagous to the cardinal numbers.

This is complicated, however, by the fact that each modal can itself have many different meanings.
Looks pretty nigh impossible to me, Andy. If it doesn't walk, or talk, or look like a duck, it's probably not.

Not so fast Larry, I've already done the first bit. IMO due to progression of meaning, the natural order is:
can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, had better, must

The question is: is the progression between modals constant?

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:51 pm

Andy wrote:Not so fast Larry, I've already done the first bit. IMO due to progression of meaning, the natural order is:
can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, had better, must

The question is: is the progression between modals constant?

OK, Andy. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions too fast here. But your hard work and sincere beliefs notwithstanding, I dispute the validity of lining up the modal auxiliaries (I agree with your list except for "had better", which I question, but don't outright deny) into a progression such as you have done. I think they work in a set of pairs: can/could, may/might, will/would, shall/should, and must. I do not believe there is any direct relationship between elements in the set (can/could does not bear any direct relation to may/might or will/would, for example, despite a rather similar--but not identical--core meaning between the first two elements). Will/would is quite different from can/could, and therefore, in my mind, the two could not possibly reside on the same cline/continuum.

In fact, the more I think about it, I believe the whole idea of the modal auxiliaries 'offering a range of intermediate choices between YES and NO' is specious. Bucking Halliday is risky, I know, but fun!

Larry Latham

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 10:18 pm

Larry Lantham wrote:

OK, Andy. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions too fast here. But your hard work and sincere beliefs notwithstanding, I dispute the validity of lining up the modal auxiliaries (I agree with your list except for "had better", which I question, but don't outright deny) into a progression such as you have done. I think they work in a set of pairs: can/could, may/might, will/would, shall/should, and must. I do not believe there is any direct relationship between elements in the set (can/could does not bear any direct relation to may/might or will/would, for example, despite a rather similar--but not identical--core meaning between the first two elements). Will/would is quite different from can/could, and therefore, in my mind, the two could not possibly reside on the same cline/continuum.

In fact, the more I think about it, I believe the whole idea of the modal auxiliaries 'offering a range of intermediate choices between YES and NO' is specious. Bucking Halliday is risky, I know, but fun!

Yes, you are absolutely right, you have to consider the pairs that you pointed out where they exist.

I placed "had better" where I did because it implies a stronger obligation than "should" but not as strong an obligation as "must". Yes, I know it's two words but it isn't followed by "to" and behaves like a modal syntactically. As you say, if it walks like a duck...

Will/would are different from can/could but not so different from may/might. Likewise "could" shares some of the meaning of "may".

I don't discount the order:
can/could, may/might, must, will/would, shall/should, (had better)

Which I also see in some textbooks.

I still agree with Haliday, but repeat it is only a very small part of the picture. Also, I have not used his ideas to order the modals. Although I can see that the way I wrote, everyone would think that I was using that idea. I wasn't.

I really have to write more clearly like you, Larry. I accept that among other things modality does refer to the choices between "yes" and "no" but don't know how to integrate it with any other ideas on modality.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 10:35 pm

Which I also see in some textbooks.

Textbooks...schmectbooks! Those have been so wrong so often that I'm afraid I have little faith left in them. (I know I am showing my bias, here, but I simply cannot help myself. It appears to me that the writers of most of the textbooks do almost no thinking for themselves, but rather just copy what previous authors have said, move the wording around a bit so that it looks different, put a new date on it, and claim that they've published something.)

The textbooks appear to emanate from the College of Education, and I think I've made my position on that fairly clear in earlier posts on other threads here at Dave's.

Sorry for the venting, but textbooks bring out the strongest feelings in me. I guess I link them with the "establishment", and I'm pretty-much fed up with that.

It's a weakness, I know...

Larry Latham

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 4:37 am

This thread from onestopenglish seems relevant here:
Ann Van wrote:

Ah, I think I see what you're driving at... Do you
mean a 'natural order of forcefulness'? In which case,
I'd agree with your list (& would put "ought" on an equal
footing with "should").
... Or have I completely missed the boat here?

I wrote:

can can be used for potential and ability;
could is the remote form of "can" it can be used for past ability but also uncertainty and request;
may can also be used for these last two;
might is the remote form of "may";
will is more certain than "may" and;
wouldis its remote form and can be used for suggestions;
shall can also be used for suggestions;
should is (or at least used to be) the remote form of "shall" and can be used among other things for weak obligation;
had better indicates stronger obligation than "should"; and
must is used for obligation and also deduction; the opposite of "must" for deduction is "can't" which brings us back to "can".

I wrote:

Ah, Ann, it took me so long to reply that you managed to slip a reply in yourself. Could you look at my explanation and see if that was what you were thinking of, thanks.

AnnVan wrote:

Kind of... But your thinking goes into much more detail. I
see what you describe as a 'structure' with 2 'levels'.
On top are:
can - may - will - shall - had better - must

Underneath and 'in the gaps' are:
- could - might - would - should

Like a bracelet with 2 layers of beads and "must" is the
clasp that holds it together.

(Sorry if I offend you in describing it this way!)

I wrote:

Why on earth would that offend me, in fact I think the two layer idea might be more accurate than what I've got. Must indeed seems to be the clasp. At last sb understands what it is I've been trying to do!

As for "ought to" - it's a periphrastic modal so I didn't include it. "Ought", however, was originally the past of "owe" which, IMHO is ever so slightly more obligatory than "should" so I would place it between "should" and "had better". "Ought", and certainly "oughtn't", of course, can be used with "have" in questions without "to" so perhaps it qualifies as a true modal there.

Where would you place "would rather" and "would sooner", Ann?

Ann Van wrote:

I was just concerned that you might find describing this
concept of modal verbs in terms of a 2-layered-beaded-
bracelet so bizarre as to be offensive!
But glad I was on the right (perhaps overly-
imaginative!!) frequency after all ...

Carrying on the bracelet idea, I think I'd put "would
rather" and "would sooner" as 2 individual beads
hanging down from the word "would", with "would
rather" on the left & "would sooner" (feels slightly more
assertive) on the right.

I wrote:

Far from that, it may interest you to know that I'd already come up with this:
http://www.geocities.com/endipatterson/ModalClock.html
which I used in another discussion.

With "would rather" and "would sooner" you differ from what I had but I suspect you may be more accurate. The trouble with "would rather" and "would sooner" (apart from the fact that as well as being followed by the bare infinitive) is that they can be looked at in two ways:
1. as near synonyms of prefer; or
2. As an off-shoot of would.
At least we agree that "would sooner" follows "would rather".

Unlike "had better" which has not idea of "had" in its conventional sense, they do seem to have some idea of the conventional meaning of "would". Initially I put them before "will" but in the second sense that is nonsensical so I think you are right.

Ann, is this the sort of thing that you had in mind?

http://www.geocities.com/endipatterson/ModalKite.html

Ann Van wrote:

I like the kite It's not what I had in my imagination,
but that doesn't make it any less legit.!

At this point another poster got irate at my including "had better" in with the modals which pretty much finished off the discussion.

I'll message Ann and see if she'd like to join the discussion.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:21 am

Andrew Patterson wrote:
Cardinal numbers, for instance, therefore do not form a continuum, but positive numbers, which include an infinite number of fractions in between, do
.

Yup, that sounds pretty close to the cline I had in mind. Patsy Cline is another cline I had in mind.

I'm not sure whether the rate of such changes need to be linear or constant (from the viewpoint of the mathematical discipline of differential calculus) but expect they do.
That sentence has no sense. "Do" what?

I think that I can see where Halliday is coming from when he says:
Modality refers to the intermediate choices between yes and no.
In as much as we do in fact have a continuum of choice between yes and no which is only expressable through modality.
I would say it is a continuum with fact at either end and a lot of modality in between. Do continua have ends?

Note also that Haliday did not say that that was the whole picture
.

Indeed not.

The trouble with talking about a "continuum of meaning" (or indeed any continuum formed from a qualitative construct) is that such ideas may not be amenable to mathematical analysis. It is as if we would need a sort of non-numerical calculus to do so. We don't have this problem with continuums formed from quantitative constructs because they are amenable to mathematical analysis.
I don't do maths. Language is my thing and clines suit me fine. "Scale" is another word you can use if you like.

Now that I have defined a continuum, I realise that fitting the modals into one requires that:
1) the modals be ordered into a natural progression of meaning, and
2) the change of meaning between each modal is constant and linear too. In this way the modals are analagous to the cardinal numbers.

This is complicated, however, by the fact that each modal can itself have many different meanings.
Use different clines/continua.

Perhaps a clade doesn't need constant rate of change.
What's a clade?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:24 am

LarryLatham wrote:

I think they work in a set of pairs: can/could, may/might, will/would, shall/should, and must. I do not believe there is any direct relationship between elements in the set (can/could does not bear any direct relation to may/might or will/would, for example, despite a rather similar--but not identical--core meaning between the first two elements). Will/would is quite different from can/could, and therefore, in my mind, the two could not possibly reside on the same cline/continuum.
At least there, we agree.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:37 am

Metal wrote:

What's a clade?

Sorry, I meant cline. For what it's worth, though, a clade is a group of biological taxa or species that share a common ancestor.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:41 am

Could we safely say that even though modals do not express facts, the sentences in which they are found can express facts? The modal in a factual sentence plays the role of marking for the (speaker's) stance upon the factuality mentioned in the sentence.

Is that a fair statement?

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:47 am

metal56 wrote:Could we safely say that even though modals do not express facts, the sentences in which they are found can express facts? The modal in a factual sentence plays the role of marking for the (speaker's) stance upon the factuality mentioned in the sentence.

Is that a fair statement?

I think not, although I very much like your phrase, "marking for the speaker's stance".

Lewis makes it pretty clear that modal auxiliaries mark for the speaker's stance as concerns NON-FACTUAL elements of the proposition. After all, if it's a fact, what kind of stance could a speaker have about it?

Larry Latham

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:49 am

Andrew Patterson wrote:Metal wrote:
What's a clade?
Sorry, I meant cline. For what it's worth, though, a clade is a group of biological taxa or species that share a common ancestor.

Just like us humans, Brother.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:50 am

Metal wrote:

Could we safely say that even though modals do not express facts, the sentences in which they are found can express facts? The modal in a factual sentence plays the role of marking for the (speaker's) stance upon the factuality mentioned in the sentence.

Is that a fair statement?

Not only a fair statement but a plain one. If by "stance" you mean what other commentators have pomposly termed "philosophical outlook".

Guilty myself, here.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:56 am

Just like us humans, Brother.

Along with our brother gibbons and other anthropoid arboreal apes.

Larry Latham