"gets to" and modality

[Andrew Patterson]

Is it time to split this thread up?

This thread has developed into a complicated net of ideas all of them interesting, but it is becoming difficult to keep track of the different directions in which the thread is going.

Might I suggest:
1. The nature of Modality and catenatives.
Well this is suposed to be an applied linguistics forum and this is certainly not applied, but most of the discussion has centred around this so far (maybe I am largely to blame for that.)

2. How to teach modal verbs.

3. How to teach Catenatives (or maybe how to teach gerunds and infinitives.)

Maybe you think 2. and 3 should go together.

4. Venn diagram of the English catenatives. This is my own project and is still very much a work in progress. This thread already exists, although it hasn't attracted much interest. I use a much simplified version of this as a teaching aid with "Ready for First certificate" Just the bottom two rings and the significant differences in meaning where a verb can be followed by a gerund or infinitive.

I certainly wouldn't suggest using the unsimplified diagram as a teaching aid.

[metal56]

I'd vote for "modality and the catenatives", if we can discuss "gets to" a little more.

[LarryLatham]

Can I go to the toilet?
May I go to the toilet?

Stephen, if you are asserting that these sentences are interchangable, then I won't argue with you. Just as M-W says, that has been pretty well established for years. The pragmatics of the two are the same in most contexts (but not always...maybe not if the asker is in the hospital just after urinary tract surgery, and is asking the doctor).

But that they may be interchangable is a long way from the idea that they are identical, as you seem to be insisting. Anyone with their glasses on can see that they are not, though it is clear that the only formal difference between them is can/may. While it might be that whatever difference there is in these two particular, well-chosen, sentences is minimal (hence their interchangability), the use of can/may in other (equally well-chosen) sentences is not. Consider:

Stephen can drink 7 beers.
Stephen may drink 7 beers.

I believe you will be much harder pressed to maintain that these two sentences are identical in meaning. They both appear to be predictions, I'll agree. But there clearly is a difference, and I believe the difference is exactly what I earlier posited: use of can asserts the user's instantaneous judgment that it is possible for Stephen..., whereas use of may suggests the user's involvement in that possibility (I suppose it is possible... or, if I have anything to say about it, it is possible...). This last idea explains why use of may appears so appropriate in the giving of permissions.

I think it is useful for most students to tell them that any difference of form implies a difference of meaning, however slight in certain particular contexts. It changes student involvement. And the teacher's too. Now, instead of, "Teacher, does X mean the same as Y?", you'll hear, "Teacher, what is the difference in meaning between X and Y?". So you have to prepare yourself, but the different form-different meaning thesis seems theoretically sound. As I said before, users need good reason for making choices between alternatives. (And Stephen, choice of a random number is not the same kind of thing. Though 5 or 7 may both be random, they clearly are not identical. A chooser has no conflict. )

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

Incidentally, I find the discussion as to whether the modal auxiliaries are verbs or not to be somewhat sterile, on a par with the old chestnut as to whether viruses are living organisms or not. We all know what they are and what they do, so why argue over the label.

I don't know, Stephen. This discussion seems to be rather lively to me, hardly sterile. Perhaps this means that not everyone here knows what they are and what they do. Perhaps it means that it's about more than the label.

But then, maybe I'm the only one here who is not sure.

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

What are catenative verbs?
• catenatives say something about either a state or an action / occurrence
• they are verbs which are grammatically linked to other verbal constructions
• catenatives are, for example: see, want, hear, remember, like
I saw somebody fall out of a tree.
I want to come.
I heard him coming.
I remember doing it.
He likes to go to Bielefeld.

This, of course, does not tell us what catenative "verbs" are, does it? It lists a few, and says they are 'grammatically linked to other verbal constructions'. But then, a great many words you may find in sentences are grammatically linked to verbal constructions, and some of them are not even catenatives.

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

Thank you for clarifying that you thought modality refers back to the speaker not the subject, of course it is only when the subject is "I" that the two coincide.

This may be the case, but even here, the speaker in sentences beginning with "I" is involved it two different ways at the same time: as the subject, and as the speaker.

I will come is not the same kind of sentence as I drive to work.

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

Andrew, maybe I should have done it this way to begin with. My apologies if I have engendered confusion.

1. What is a verb and what is it about modals that makes them not verbs?

A finite verb is any word or complex that fits into the "V" slot of S/V/C in a sentence. If by "modals" here, you mean "modal auxiliaries", I will acknowledge that they do form part of verb complexes, but that does not make them verbs any more than a starter motor is the same as a battery in an automobile. Modal auxiliaries do not behave as verbs do, and since it seems most useful to apply labels to parts of sentences according to how they behave in the sentence, it does not feel right to me to say that modal auxiliaries are a kind of verb.

2. If modals are not verbs, what are they?

Here again, I assume you mean to refer to modal auxiliaries rather than other kinds of modal devices. Modal auxiliaries, in my view, are tools that can be used by an author to express his instantaneous judgment of non-factual and non-temporal elements of sentence propositions. A user therefore has three tools to work with in verb complexes: tense, to mark factual elements, aspect, to mark time elements, and modal auxiliaries to mark for opinions about such things as possibility, ability, likelihood, desirability, etc. Of course, modal concepts can be marked with other language outside the verb complex.

3. Are stative verbs verbs?

Yes.

4. Do you think that the catenatives are verbs and the modals are not?

I'll really have to plead ignorance here, as I don't really understand catenatives (or at least, I am not familiar with the label--perhaps I am familiar with the concept under a different label, but that remains unclear at the moment). If "catenatives" are the same as what we here in the United States call "linking verbs" (Stephen's remark that the word comes from Latin meaning "to link" leads me to wonder, but I'm still not sure) then I would agree that they are verbs. Otherwise, I have no opinion.

5. ....do you nevertheless agree that modals and catenatives do their action to the verb that follows?

No. Perhaps in a decontextualized example, but not in a sentence. The entire proposition is involved. Of course, in cases where the verb complex is the entire proposition (intransitive), then I suppose you could say they apply to the verb.

6. .... (is it the word "action" that you object to)?

No. I do not understand what you mean by "[catenatives and modals] overlay their meaning on the verb that follows them". On second thought, you might mean something like what I suggest in my answer to your 2nd question above. Is that the case?

7. I'm afraid I don't understand your question number 7.

8. ...how can catenatives be verbs and modals not?

If I believe that catenatives and modal auxiliaries are different things, then why could I not say that one is a verb and the other is not?

I'm sorry I could not really answer all your questions, Andrew, but some of them I could not understand in the context of my ideas. Anyway, I hope this helps to partially clear up some of your questions.

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

Yeah, I'm in agreement with Andrew that this thread has gotten too long and too convoluted. Change would be welcome.

Larry Latham