Basic semantic meanings of modal auxiliaries.

[metal56]

And those are both this "external obligation" thing you go on about?

No, learn to read before you post. The first is subjective permission (permission granted by the speaker) whilst the second is objective permission, granted by some other entity but the speaker. They are both deontic however, because they are talking about permission, and thus different from He could come now which is epistemic, and She can come now she's recovered from her riding accident which is dynamic, talking about her ability.

In this, it looks as though you are applying the term "external obligation" to all these sentences. Are you?

Deontic modality is conerned with permission, obligation or advisablity. Like epistemic modality it normally reflects the view of he speaker, but there is such a thing as objective deontic modality where the obligation is imposed by external rules.
Examples:
You can come in now.
Can/may/might I borrow your car?
You mustn't touch that.
You needn't come in tomorrow.
Women must/have to cover their hair in Saudi Arabia.

[metal56]

Actually it is not all that clear that 'might' is still considered more remote than 'may'. Because 'may I' is considered very formal, there is a tendency for 'may' to take on the same remote characteristics as 'might'.

There is a more important distinction however, and that is that 'may' can be used for permission and 'might' normally cannot.

Whatever these things take on is not really part of my discussion here. I stated that in my first post.

What does "normally" (above) mean?

Might I help you?

Papa, might we borrow the car this weekend?

If you are saying that it is not much used for permission anymore, please say that clearly. It is not the fault of "might" that modern society chooses not to recognise it as pragmatically useful when asking for permission in a more tentative (remote) way.

[Stephen Jones]

Anyway, you don't believe in central meanings. Why on earth would you believe in three central meanings.

I am not talking about three separate core meanings. I am talking about three separate types of modality, or three seperate functions.

• modality which passes a judgement on the factuality or possibility of the action.
  modality which deals with obligation or permission - whether subjective or objective
  modality which deals with ability or volition, amongst other things.

There is a clear difference between the way the modal auxiliaries are used in the three cases. That is to say the meaning of the modal tends to change according to the type of modality.

[LarryLatham]

Anyone with the slightest grip on real life will get a belly laugh out of a small group of ostensibly grown men arguing with such intensity over the grammatical nuances of a small group of words in English.

This is going nowhere.

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

You catalyzed it. No-one woz saying nothing 'til you showed up again.

[metal56]

Are you kidding Metal (Milky)? We encounter each other on two different forums these days...........

Yeah, OK, maybe "might" is somewhat weaker. Always hard to define a core though. Those definitions from Lewis seem to suggest a big difference between the two.

Or you read Lewis incorrectly.

One of the main pragmatic differences between "may" and "might" is that the former is used in direct requests for permission while the latter is used more in indirect requests for permission. Indirect requests are accompanied by a distancing (what Lewis call "remoteness") in social relationship. This is where "May I have one?" sounds natural and "Might I have one?" sounds a little strange, though possible. Modern society has become less used to using indirect requests. Still, the core meaning of both modals remain. What folks do with them is another thing.

[LarryLatham]

You catalyzed it. No-one woz saying nothing 'til you showed up again.

Guilty as charged.

It is probably fair that I will be accused of stirring things up here and then picking up my marbles when I'm unsatisfied with what happens. I don't want to do that, and maybe I won't, but at the same time it doesn't seem to me that we're getting anywhere close to any kind of resolution in this argument whether it's an outcome I like or one that I don't. Going in circles is for people who have nothing better to do. I'm not in that position. Nor do I want to start another controversy about what people do on these forums. A cat fight is not of much interest to me. Getting closer to understanding a difficult concept is. Discussion is not discussion which only points fingers and calls names. Nor is one which invokes a series of misquotes from the literature and acts as if the matter were thus settled.

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

By way of trying to restart something good here, I've been doing some re-reading of Lewis in the last couple of hours, and have discovered that I'm as guilty as anyone here about misquoting the literature. Lewis quite plainly states that it is not possible to determine an absolute "core basic meaning" to any of the modal auxiliaries. In fact he quotes Palmer as dismissing such a basic meaning. But he goes on to further quote from Palmer who says,

"(This) must not be taken to imply that we cannot look for a fairly generalised common meaning or a set of closely related meanings for each modal. It is only when precision is demanded or invariance postulated that the notion of a basic meaning becomes unrealistic."

Moreover, Lewis says clearly that modal auxiliaries do not comment upon the factual elements of a proposition. That is for other grammatical devices. Lewis says that modal auxiliaries allow speakers to comment on the non-factual, non-temporal elements of a proposition. He names some of these as, "possibility, necessity, desirability, morality, doubt, and certainty." So he seems to be denying the existence of epistemic modality, if I read that correctly, and if I understand correctly what epistemic modality presumably refers to.

There is something endearingly sensible about that. After all, we have present and past simple tenses to express facts; continuous and perfect aspects to express the temporal elements; why not a series of modal auxiliaries to express the other kinds of meaningful factors of an utterance?

Larry Latham

[revel]

Good morning.

It seems to have been overlooked in earlier posts that I read this thread with interest and attempt to get what I can out of it to enrich my teaching. I do think that sometimes the hair-splitting is extreme, but that is only because I am not, in this case, qualified to participate.

I am asked what examples are chosen to teach the meanings of the alterations caused by using a modal auxiliary. Well, that depends on what's going on in the class. I can say, for example, that I follow a pretty basic sylabis which runs from making nouns plural, through the use of "be" in the present, the use of "do/does" in making questions and negatives, the use of "in/on/at" as prepositions, and then the substitution of these concepts with ever more complicated semantic concepts that fall into the already learned patterns. The discovery of "would" as in "I'd like some wine please" comes from a situational dialogue that is practiced and expanded upon for at least three and up to five class periods. The dialogue is called "The English Restaurant" and is found in the old Streamlines "Departures" book. I don't teach the students what "would" means, indeed, I insist on its contraction. I do teach that the use of I'd is well done here, we don't know the waiter personally, and even if we do, we're in a restaurant, asking someone who is not our servant, not our slave, to please serve us this or that item of consumption. We like to be polite, or we have had politeness banged into our heads by our parents and society in general, and the way we demonstrate this polite attitude is by saying "I'd like a glass of wine, please" instead of the as-useful-but-rather-dry-and-even-impolite "Bring me a glass of wine" or "I want a glass of wine" or "Forget the glass, bring the bottle!" So, using that 'd, I'm modifying the verb, indicating that I want whatever it is I'm suggesting after "I'd like" and that I respect the person I am asking for that whatever from, at least enough to not shout an imperative order at him/her.

"Can I go to the toilet, please?" "Can I sharpen my pencil, please?" "Can I have a pencil, please?" The children know quite well that these three questions will help them attain what they want from the teacher. When asked as indicated, the teacher usually says "Yes, you can." Perhaps next year I'll change that "Can" to "May" as my mother did when I was old enough to begin to see the difference between ability and permission. The children have no difficulty using that question in other situations. They have spontaneously come up with "Can I speak Spanish please" or "Can I draw on the blackboard please?" and they recognize the "can" when we are talking about free-time activities, "I can play the piano" and asking a fellow student "Can you swim?" At no time have I had to delve into the core or root meaning of can to get the students to use it correctly. I will point out that sometmes they use it incorrectly "Can I have got 4 dollars." when they ought to be saying "Have I got 4 dollars?" but that usually occurs after having used "can" a lot in a specific exercise.

I suppose many of us do look for a simplified way of getting through this seemingly dense material. One way might just be the three categories with the auxiliaries listed under each title with illustrative examples. Perhaps the matter is better left to the structural manipulation of auxiliaries in general and the meaning to be explained based on the context in which the auxiliary is used (be doing something is not always "right now" but can be "soon"). I like to get as directly to the practice as possible and though the comments on this thread are intensely interesting to me (though, and not being a simpleton here, are somewhat over my head, ask me about pronunciation or improvisation, there I can really get going!) I personally wouldn't share the majority of this information with my students, not economic use of class time. Don't take that to mean that we shouldn't be discussing it here or that I only want to speak of classroom application. Perhaps I am concentrating on classroom application as few others have brought it up, and it is indeed a part of why such detailed discussion exists, at least for me. Otherwise we might just be debating how many angels are dancing on that pin-head.

peace,
revel.

[metal56]

By way of trying to restart something good here, I've been doing some re-reading of Lewis in the last couple of hours, and have discovered that I'm as guilty as anyone here about misquoting the literature. Lewis quite plainly states that it is not possible to determine an absolute "core basic meaning" to any of the modal auxiliaries. In fact he quotes Palmer as dismissing such a basic meaning. But he goes on to further quote from Palmer who says,

"(This) must not be taken to imply that we cannot look for a fairly generalised common meaning or a set of closely related meanings for each modal. It is only when precision is demanded or invariance postulated that the notion of a basic meaning becomes unrealistic."

Moreover, Lewis says clearly that modal auxiliaries do not comment upon the factual elements of a proposition. That is for other grammatical devices. Lewis says that modal auxiliaries allow speakers to comment on the non-factual, non-temporal elements of a proposition. He names some of these as, "possibility, necessity, desirability, morality, doubt, and certainty." So he seems to be denying the existence of epistemic modality, if I read that correctly, and if I understand correctly what epistemic modality presumably refers to.

There is something endearingly sensible about that. After all, we have present and past simple tenses to express facts; continuous and perfect aspects to express the temporal elements; why not a series of modal auxiliaries to express the other kinds of meaningful factors of an utterance?

Larry Latham

Lewis goes on to say:

... the best approach is is to look for a single central meaning while at the same time recognising a number of marginal examples.

The English Verb, pg 103.

On the same page, he goes on to point out the differences between semantic meaning and communicative meaning and concludes so:

Communicative meaning is a combination of semantic meaning and other factors.

I think that distinction is important.

Lewis quite plainly states that it is not possible to determine an absolute "core basic meaning" to any of the modal auxiliaries.

Take a look at the end of page 103 and the first part of page 104. in TEV.

[Stephen Jones]

At no time have I had to delve into the core or root meaning of can to get the students to use it correctly.

Of course they don't; they're Spanish. They can get it right by translating literallly. Wait until you get to Streamline 3 and watch them flounder with 'he can't have done it' with the murder in the drawing room.

[Stephen Jones]

Lewis goes on to say:

... the best approach is is to look for a single central meaning while at the same time recognising a number of marginal examples.

It's not the best approach at all; it's a complete disaster. Quirk & Greenbaum in "A University Grammar of English" give a list of uses of the modal auxiliaries; for each mocal auxiliary there are never less than two uses, and never more than five. In the odd case you can say that one of the uses is marginal but there is no way you can reduce the number of uses or meanings to one, and no earthly need to.

Bearing in mind that some of the uses/meanings are common across modals, we have a perfectly manageable set of meanings accepted by all authorities, and no need to indulge in the kind of linguistic contortionism your initial posting to this thread leads us to.[/b]

[metal56]

"Can I go to the toilet, please?" "Can I sharpen my pencil, please?" "Can I have a pencil, please?" The children know quite well that these three questions will help them attain what they want from the teacher. When asked as indicated, the teacher usually says "Yes, you can." Perhaps next year I'll change that "Can" to "May" as my mother did when I was old enough to begin to see the difference between ability and permission. The children have no difficulty using that question in other situations. They have spontaneously come up with "Can I speak Spanish please" or "Can I draw on the blackboard please?" and they recognize the "can" when we are talking about free-time activities, "I can play the piano" and asking a fellow student "Can you swim?" At no time have I had to delve into the core or root meaning of can to get the students to use it correctly. I will point out that sometmes they use it incorrectly "Can I have got 4 dollars." when they ought to be saying "Have I got 4 dollars?" but that usually occurs after having used "can" a lot in a specific exercise.

peace,
revel.

Why would you want to do that when the research at Longman shows that "may" is hardly used for permission in contemporary use? "Can" is used much more.

And:

But surely the fact that 97% of all may occurrences express possibility and only 3% permission would indicate that we should devote more time to the former than is usually the case in current textbooks.

http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej09/r11.html

[Stephen Jones]

If you are saying that it is not much used for permission anymore, please say that clearly. It is not the fault of "might" that modern society chooses not to recognise it as pragmatically useful when asking for permission in a more tentative (remote) way.

It is not used at all ifor permission in the affirmative or negative.
We'll say Might I borrow your car?
but not
You might/might not borrow my car.
with the sense of permission.

Quirk and Greenbaum say "Might I" is 'rare', but that is not what I was referring to.

In this, it looks as though you are applying the term "external obligation" to all these sentences. Are you?

Quote:
Deontic modality is conerned with permission, obligation or advisablity. Like epistemic modality it normally reflects the view of he speaker, but there is such a thing as objective deontic modality where the obligation is imposed by external rules.
Examples:
You can come in now.
Can/may/might I borrow your car?
You mustn't touch that.
You needn't come in tomorrow.
Women must/have to cover their hair in Saudi Arabia.

No; apologies if it is not totally clear at first reading. They are all examples of deontic modality. Only the last one is clearly objective deontic modality.

[metal56]

Lewis goes on to say:

... the best approach is is to look for a single central meaning while at the same time recognising a number of marginal examples.

It's not the best approach at all; it's a complete disaster. Quirk & Greenbaum in "A University Grammar of English" give a list of uses of the modal auxiliaries; for each mocal auxiliary there are never less than two uses, and never more than five. In the odd case you can say that one of the uses is marginal but there is no way you can reduce the number of uses or meanings to one, and no earthly need to.

Bearing in mind that some of the uses/meanings are common across modals, we have a perfectly manageable set of meanings accepted by all authorities, and no need to indulge in the kind of linguistic contortionism your initial posting to this thread leads us to.[/b]

I'm sorry, but I also think that you speak hogwash.

Look:

John can come.

Is that ambiguous when out of context? Yes, it is. It can mean that the speaker allows John to come or that john is able to come. Your way of refusing basic semantic meaning for each modal leads to explaining that can has many meanings, here, probably possibility and ability. But, that is when contextualised.

Decontextualised, "can" has only one core meaning and that is one of possibility. What you seem not to know is that there are different kinds of possibility. In the "John can come" example the possibility can be one of:

1. possibility of permission (I allow him to come)
2. physical possibility (His leg has mended and so he is able to come)
3. possibility of non-restriction (He is free on the day in question)

Again, can can roughly be paraphrased as:

Can = I assert that it is possible that ...

That is the basic semantic meaning of that modal.


And "can" as in "John can ride a bike" is not stating a fact, but is stating potential. "John rides bikes" is a to be read as a fact. Modality steps back from the factuality of non-modal statements. In all cases.