Generic "will".

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 5:51 pm

Andrew Patterson wrote:
True, we can be 0.01% realis to 99.99% realis, but never 0% realis or 100% because if we were, we might as well use the indicative.
That's true.

As for alethic modality, it seems to be a sub-division of epistemic modality.
I also see it as under the banner of epistemic modality.

I'll have to coin one. αβέβαιος (abebaios) is the Greek for "uncertain" the adjective from that would be "abebeic" so I would suggest we call it "abebeic modality" or "abebeic epistemic modality"
It's pertinent, but I don't think it's a seller pronuciationwise.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:22 pm

/'eı·beb'eı·ık/

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:24 pm

Wow! There's been a lot of posting here overnight. Most of it is over my head, I'm afraid, but I'm still pretty clear on certain aspects of this conversation...at least in my own head.

I like the Stubbs definition of modality. It squares well with my own.

...those linguistic means by which a speaker can express his attitude towards the proposition. Modality is thus the attitude of the speaker towards the content of what he says’ (Kärkkäinen: 150, Stubbs 1986: 15).

I would only add that modality can only be used against non-factual elements of the proposition.

I am well aware, M56, that juries, judges, and all interlocutors are continuously involved in either internal or external challenges to other peoples' "facts". Some of the things you come up with here cause me to laugh at my monitor. (I hasten to add that most of what you say sounds reasonable and plausable and typically is well and clearly put.) But let's not forget that it is the speaker who chooses the language. It is he who judges the credibility of what he is himself saying when it comes to choosing how to put it. If he believes something is a "fact" (whether or not other people--listeners or otherwise--do), then he will present it as such in his choice of language. He will use direct, indicative, present simple tense statements. In other words, he represents it as fact.

But if he wishes to show his attitude towards elements of his proposition which he does not or cannot logically consider to be factual, then he will likely use some kind of modality to express that attitude. Modal auxiliaries are not the only device available, of course, as you know, but when they are used, they convey the speaker's attitude toward non-factual elements, not towards what he sees as facts, because that very idea is ridiculous. Why would he take a stance concerning what he himself believes to be a fact? His stance is already determined: it's a fact!

Larry Latham

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:54 pm

Hi Larry, welcome back. It was daytime for me, a rainy Sunday. Soon it'll be time for bed on the other side of the pond.

Following on from what you said Larry, Metal wrote:

Courtrooms are full of stance on the facts - juries.

It might just be that I am interpreting "stance" as shorthand for "the philosophical framework in which the proposition is interpreted". If that isn't what you mean, Metal, this critisism may well be wrong but IMO juries can't take a stance on the facts themselves but you can on the analysis that they may on the facts:

Given X and Y, we may conclude Z.

This is of course the structure of a conditional; the reason why modals do not appear in the first clause is precicely because we do not take a stance on facts.

Metal also wrote:

Anyway, in truth:

"I was saying (in reference to Popper's theory) Popper believed that
scientific theories cannot be absolutely confirmed by facts, since
a future fact may come up which breaks the pattern of confirmation,
but that theories can be absolutely falsified, since it only takes
one instance to refute a universal claim that a theory may make."

www2.cddc.vt.edu/spoon-archives/feyerabend.archive

How long is a fact a fact?

Mathematics deals in facts, science does not deal in facts except in the broadest cases of direct observation. Science is the process of finding progressively better approximations of truth. Theories which are not falsifyable are not scientific.

Larry Also wrote quoting me:

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.) Evil or Very Mad 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. Rolling Eyes It's a weakness, I know...

I have a feeling that Juan's archaic modals may be the basis for the order commonly found in books. "Must" was actually the remote form of "Mote" at one time before "mote" fell into disuse outside masonic ceremonies (so I'm told.) This might explain why "must" is often found immediately after "may" and "might". Alliteration is another possibility, too that I wouldn't rule out.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 6:57 pm

So perhaps a semantic distinction is needed between one one hand degrees of modality echoed in the verb+verb structure (do-support, bare infinitive etc) and a more general (Stubbs) concept.

We need to be able to distinguish between the lowest member of the scout troop's choice of "We don't need to go any further tonight" and the leader's authorative "We needn't go any further tonight". For me, evidently, that first is non-modal and the second is modal. At that mechanical level.

If both are modal by the definition "...those linguistic means by which a speaker can express his attitude towards the proposition..... " then the terminology has failed us yet again.

Similarly my interest in absence of do-support as in "I expect not to see you again" , is more about seeing modality expressed in terms of structure, because by the general definition modality is everywhere.

Maybe what I'm talking about is modality in general expressed by semi-auxiliarity in the structure. So "ought to" is completely modal but semi-auxiliary.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 7:04 pm

Hi, Juan. Speak of the Devil

Juan wrote:

If both are modal by the definition "...those linguistic means by which a speaker can express his attitude towards the proposition..... " then the terminology has failed us yet again.

Both are modal by definition but terminology hasn't failed us. We are dealing with qualitative choices that seem so different from each other we want to somehow quantify that difference; but the difference will always be qualitative so we can't quantify it.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 7:17 pm

JuanTwoThree wrote:
We need to be able to distinguish between the lowest member of the scout troop's choice of "We don't need to go any further tonight" and the leader's authorative "We needn't go any further tonight". For me, evidently, that first is non-modal and the second is modal. At that mechanical level.

If both are modal by the definition "...those linguistic means by which a speaker can express his attitude towards the proposition..... " then the terminology has failed us yet again.

In British English, need to is seen as a full verb.

The lexical items/fossil/modal operator is need without to:

Need I come?

You needn't try to get round me.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 7:50 pm

Metal wrote:

In British English, need to is seen as a full verb.

The lexical items/fossil/modal operator is need without to:

Need I come?

You needn't try to get round me.

I disagree, Metal. when I see the "to" there which isn't a preposition, it is clearly a catenative. Actually, "need" frames modality in several catenative structures:
1. modal questions and negatives:
2. v-ing
3. to+inf
4. obj+to+inf

The only time there is no overt modality is when it is followed by only an object:

eg I need some nails.
Even here modality is latent. I only have to ask why and it frames the answer:
To fix the table.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 9:28 pm

I think I've got it. It's the difference between modality and modal auxiliaries: "don't/ didn't need/needs/needed+ to/ing" is a full verb but can display modality, or at least you can argue about it. "need" (the no-do no-s no-to version in q's and neg's) is modal by any definition.

The confusion is understandable. If there can be "non-auxiliary modal expressions" and if "Idon't mind going" shows modality then there's on the one hand modality in general (which surely is too widespread to get excited about if it can be shown by adverbs, adjectives and intonation) and on the other modality made patently evident through auxiliaries such as the nine main players (CCSSWWMMM) and to a greater or lesser extent by means of marginal modals and other such things as let, make , help, daren't, had better, oughtn't to, needn't , no do- support in some expressions, bare infinitives after verbs of perception or any other manifestion of a lack, in part, of what we usually understand by verb plus verb complimentation.

What's fascinating is when there is that recognition of modality in the syntax. However jokingly you may say "I think not" the fact is that it jars less than "I sleep not" . Only because we've heard it in films? I hope not.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 10:32 pm

Andrew Patterson wrote:
I disagree, Metal
Then let's agree to disagree, OK?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 9:43 am

Metal, no, please

this is far too fundamental to agree to disagree. ALL catenatives frame modality.

Metal, you just got interested in boulomaic/bouletic modality. That is exactly the modality that "need" expresses. Look at pages 249-250 (slide 11) from Stance moods in modern English. http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/tex ... t-Text.pdf
You gave us the link:

Boulomatic Planning versus small talk
The mood of the positive half of the second factor is full of want and need verbs, a category of modality that Hoyle calls boulomaic modality verbs.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:47 pm

It's not just "need". Is it fair to say that Verb+to+Verb and especially Verb+Object+to+Verb often suggest the speaker's view of how things might be rather than just indicative of how things are? Certainly

I want/expect/need/ etc John to help.

can only be expressed in other languages with a subjunctive.

Verb +infinitive/Verb +object+infinitive seem to fit in with:

"modality: ‘the essence of "modality" consists in the relativization of the validity of sentence meanings to a set of possible worlds’ (Keifer 1994: 2515a); from a speaker’s-evaluation approach, modality is ‘the speaker’s cognitive, emotive, or volitive attitude toward a state of affairs’ (Keifer 1994: 2516a), his ‘commitment or detachment’ (Stubbs), his ‘envisaging several possible courses of events’ or his ‘considering of things being otherwise’ (Keifer 1994: 2516b). Modality is ‘another name for mood, but one applied more specially to certain distinctions concerned with the speaker’s estimate of the relation between the actor and the accomplishment of some event’ (Trask). Mood is a formal verbal category while 'modalities… have been treated primarily in terms of modal meaning' (Koktová 1998: 600). Modality may be expressed through verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, particles, intonation. "

It's more interesting than I had thought.

By the way I'm discovering more about the growth of do-support over the centuries. It's not surprising that the verbs which most resisted it were verbs like know, think, believe, hope etc. In fact they still do to some extent. It's also interesting that using the past of do in the same way (did-support?) seems to have come later. If does-support was also some sort of later grammaticalisation of auxiliary "do" then it's almost true that for a while "do" (without the possibility of does and did) was a sort of modal, something that I've always thought anyway:

Do you speak English? = Is it your assertion that you ..........

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 3:50 pm

Juan wrote:

It's not just "need". Is it fair to say that Verb+to+Verb and especially Verb+Object+to+Verb often suggest the speaker's view of how things might be rather than just indicative of how things are? Certainly

I want/expect/need/ etc John to help.

can only be expressed in other languages with a subjunctive.

I was not aware that "to+inf" expressed things that could only be expressed in the subjunctive in other languages. I forget where you are from, Juan, are you a Spanish or Portugese speaker? I think I heard that Spanish doesn't have the subjunctive and Portugese does (correct me if I'm wrong) do you know how they deal with that? I think that "to+inf" is mostly to do with expressing purpose. Presumably if one has a purpose, one has an idea of how things might be when and if that purpose is achieved. But I also think that there may be something inherent in the meaning of the verb that also expresses boulomaic modality. Not all verbs followed by to+inf expresses boulomaic modality. I also noted that verbs that express boulomaic modality modality can be followed by either to+in or obj+to+inf I list all such verbs that I know of here:
Beg
Expect
Help
Need
Want

Would hate
Would like
Would love
Would prefer

Would you say all of these express boulomaic modality? I'm not sure yet.

Verb +infinitive/Verb +object+infinitive seem to fit in with:

"modality: ‘the essence of "modality" consists in the relativization of the validity of sentence meanings to a set of possible worlds’ (Keifer 1994: 2515a); from a speaker’s-evaluation approach, modality is ‘the speaker’s cognitive, emotive, or volitive attitude toward a state of affairs’ (Keifer 1994: 2516a), his ‘commitment or detachment’ (Stubbs), his ‘envisaging several possible courses of events’ or his ‘considering of things being otherwise’ (Keifer 1994: 2516b). Modality is ‘another name for mood, but one applied more specially to certain distinctions concerned with the speaker’s estimate of the relation between the actor and the accomplishment of some event’ (Trask). Mood is a formal verbal category while 'modalities… have been treated primarily in terms of modal meaning' (Koktová 1998: 600). Modality may be expressed through verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, particles, intonation. "

I like the Keifer quote, ‘the essence of "modality" consists in the relativization of the validity of sentence meanings to a set of possible worlds,’ that links in nicely with the realis vs irealis discussion.

It's more interesting than I had thought.

I find the whole subject fascinating

By the way I'm discovering more about the growth of do-support over the centuries. It's not surprising that the verbs which most resisted it were verbs like know, think, believe, hope etc. In fact they still do to some extent. It's also interesting that using the past of do in the same way (did-support?) seems to have come later. If does-support was also some sort of later grammaticalisation of auxiliary "do" then it's almost true that for a while "do" (without the possibility of does and did) was a sort of modal, something that I've always thought anyway:

Do you speak English? = Is it your assertion that you ..........

There was something that came up earlier about this. I'll see if I can find it to see if it can be linked in here, Juan.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 3:51 pm

Being housebound I'm in a position, not a very nice one, to google a lot.

http://www.brighton.ac.uk/languages/res ... dality.pdf

seems to be a good overview, in fact some of it seems distinctly familiar.

Spanish in these cases is subjunctive, something like "I want that you go/he go". I tease my students that the British Empire was more successful than the Spanish because the subject races had to learn Spanish subjunctives and imperatives before they could be exploited. Not very PC, I admit.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 3:52 pm

Lewis' summary on the basic group of modal auxiliaries:

can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must

It is particularly important to note that will and shall are included in this list, while forms with (have) to and ought to are not.

These modal auxiliaries:

a. Form a closed group of words sharing structural and semantic properties. It is not helpful to call them "defective verbs".

b. They are essentially grounded in the moment of speaking - based on an assessment "in the present circumstances".

c. They express the speaker's (or, in questions, the listener's ) judgement about non-factual, non-temporal elements in an action.

The English Verb, page 108 - 109.