can,could,may,maybe,should,will,would,must,
post,send,receive,
Basic meanings of modal auxiliaries
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
I have found it easiest to take a pragmatic/situational view when teaching modal auxiliaries (at least, when introducing them to students for the first time).
Instead of asking, "What do they mean?", perhaps you should ask, "When am I supposed to use them?"
To make predictions about the future, I have found the following useful:
*will = 100% chance
will probably = more than 50% chance
may = 50% chance
might = less than 50% chance
won't = 0% chance
The word "will" is the most formal way to express 100% probability; less formal is the contraction form "'ll", then comes "be going to", and then (if you are American) "be gonna".
To ask permission:
may I = formal, polite
could I = polite (the most versatile)
can I = informal
To ask someone to do something:
could you = polite, most indirect
would you = polite, indirect
can you = somewhat informal
will you = most direct, usually indicates a committment
To give advice, the stronger verbs indicate a greater consequence if the advice is not followed.
*must = very strong
had better = strong
should = less strong
ought to = somewhat weak
*Must is also very formal and usually not used in conversation; the informal equivalent is "have to."
"Can" indicates ability; "could" indicates ability in the past. Putting a verb in the past can also indicate a subjunctive, or a hypothetical situation; hence its use as an indirect way of making requests.
"Post," "send," and "receive" are not modals (but then, neither are all of my examples above!) and I'm not sure how they fit in with this group in your mind.
Instead of asking, "What do they mean?", perhaps you should ask, "When am I supposed to use them?"
To make predictions about the future, I have found the following useful:
*will = 100% chance
will probably = more than 50% chance
may = 50% chance
might = less than 50% chance
won't = 0% chance
The word "will" is the most formal way to express 100% probability; less formal is the contraction form "'ll", then comes "be going to", and then (if you are American) "be gonna".
To ask permission:
may I = formal, polite
could I = polite (the most versatile)
can I = informal
To ask someone to do something:
could you = polite, most indirect
would you = polite, indirect
can you = somewhat informal
will you = most direct, usually indicates a committment
To give advice, the stronger verbs indicate a greater consequence if the advice is not followed.
*must = very strong
had better = strong
should = less strong
ought to = somewhat weak
*Must is also very formal and usually not used in conversation; the informal equivalent is "have to."
"Can" indicates ability; "could" indicates ability in the past. Putting a verb in the past can also indicate a subjunctive, or a hypothetical situation; hence its use as an indirect way of making requests.
"Post," "send," and "receive" are not modals (but then, neither are all of my examples above!) and I'm not sure how they fit in with this group in your mind.
Hmmm. . .
Pragmatics is the the situational meaning of a word or phrase, what is "behind" the literal meaning, to the speech acts that the speaker is actually trying to attempt. Semantics has more to do with the actual meanings of the words, meanings which bridge across many contexts. In the other thread, the teachers were attempting to help themselves (and their students) understand by, for example, understanding the complete meaning of the word "could" and how that meaning bridges across all the situations it is used.
For intermediate students (which is when I do in-depth work with modals for the first time) I have found that a practical guide to the situations helps them decide which modal to use. For example, they need to become sensitive to the level of formality, or the impact of a piece of advice they are trying to give. I have them use the words first, understand them later. I found that if I tried to explain all the different meanings of "could" the students might be able to remember them, but didn't actually improve in their usage.
I wanted to see if I could get it all down in a clear and relatively succinct form, and perhaps share some things that I had to discover myself because I didn't find them in any grammar book. Sorry it didn't help you.
Pragmatics is the the situational meaning of a word or phrase, what is "behind" the literal meaning, to the speech acts that the speaker is actually trying to attempt. Semantics has more to do with the actual meanings of the words, meanings which bridge across many contexts. In the other thread, the teachers were attempting to help themselves (and their students) understand by, for example, understanding the complete meaning of the word "could" and how that meaning bridges across all the situations it is used.
For intermediate students (which is when I do in-depth work with modals for the first time) I have found that a practical guide to the situations helps them decide which modal to use. For example, they need to become sensitive to the level of formality, or the impact of a piece of advice they are trying to give. I have them use the words first, understand them later. I found that if I tried to explain all the different meanings of "could" the students might be able to remember them, but didn't actually improve in their usage.
I wanted to see if I could get it all down in a clear and relatively succinct form, and perhaps share some things that I had to discover myself because I didn't find them in any grammar book. Sorry it didn't help you.
You are correct, but not for this thread. What about the basic meaning?Tara B wrote:Pragmatics is the the situational meaning of a word or phrase, what is "behind" the literal meaning, to the speech acts that the speaker is actually trying to attempt. Semantics has more to do with the actual meanings of the words, meanings which bridge across many contexts. In the other thread, the teachers were attempting to help themselves (and their students) understand by, for example, understanding the complete meaning of the word "could" and how that meaning bridges across all the situations it is used.
Tara B wrote:That's a bit of a simplified way of looking at "be going to". In general "be going to" is used there is external or internal evidence at the time of speaking. In fact, in BE, "be going to" holds more certainty than "will" in predictions and other statements about the future.The word "will" is the most formal way to express 100% probability; less formal is the contraction form "'ll", then comes "be going to", and then (if you are American) "be gonna".
Simple prediction: It will rain on Saturday.
More complex prediction based on present evidence:
It's going to rain. Just look at those clouds.
Which would you say is more certain there?
Plus, don't forget that the certainty you relate to certain modal auxiliaries is "modal certainty" and not categorical certainty. So the "100% certainty" is certainty of a specific kind - with it there is always a little doubt expressed, that's why it's modal.
Last edited by metal56 on Thu Jul 14, 2005 7:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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JuanTwoThree
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I'm afraid that the holidays give me an opportunity to be more ubiquitous than ever on this forum. But it gives me time to address some little niggles.
I'm 99% convinced by the position of most sensible people that the modals represent the subjective judgement or authority of the user at the moment of speaking. Not exactly rocket -science .
So I'm slightly concerned by future facts like "I'll be 49 on my next birthday", concerned by that "will" I mean ( though I'm not too keen on being nearly 50 either).
How can we use a modal for the above or "I see that Christmas will be on a Sunday"? The use of "will" for the unarguable seems strange.
I'm 99% convinced by the position of most sensible people that the modals represent the subjective judgement or authority of the user at the moment of speaking. Not exactly rocket -science .
So I'm slightly concerned by future facts like "I'll be 49 on my next birthday", concerned by that "will" I mean ( though I'm not too keen on being nearly 50 either).
How can we use a modal for the above or "I see that Christmas will be on a Sunday"? The use of "will" for the unarguable seems strange.
The use of "will" for inevitability. Still, is future fact the same as present or past fact?JuanTwoThree wrote:I'm afraid that the holidays give me an opportunity to be more ubiquitous than ever on this forum. But it gives me time to address some little niggles.
I'm 99% convinced by the position of most sensible people that the modals represent the subjective judgement or authority of the user at the moment of speaking. Not exactly rocket -science .
So I'm slightly concerned by future facts like "I'll be 49 on my next birthday", concerned by that "will" I mean ( though I'm not too keen on being nearly 50 either).
How can we use a modal for the above or "I see that Christmas will be on a Sunday"? The use of "will" for the unarguable seems strange.
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JuanTwoThree
- Posts: 947
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:30 am
- Location: Spain
Excellant! I am impressed.metal56 wrote:The use of "will" for inevitability. Still, is future fact the same as present or past fact?JuanTwoThree wrote:I'm afraid that the holidays give me an opportunity to be more ubiquitous than ever on this forum. But it gives me time to address some little niggles.
I'm 99% convinced by the position of most sensible people that the modals represent the subjective judgement or authority of the user at the moment of speaking. Not exactly rocket -science .
So I'm slightly concerned by future facts like "I'll be 49 on my next birthday", concerned by that "will" I mean ( though I'm not too keen on being nearly 50 either).
How can we use a modal for the above or "I see that Christmas will be on a Sunday"? The use of "will" for the unarguable seems strange.
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JuanTwoThree
- Posts: 947
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:30 am
- Location: Spain
Poking about the learner sites I was surprised to see this last paragraph:
"Be
The verb be is an exception with will. Even when we have a very firm plan, and we are not speaking spontaneously, we can use will with be. Look at these examples:
I will be in London tomorrow.
There will be 50 people at the party.
The meeting will be at 9.30 am. "
This was in
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb ... e-will.htm
so someone has tried to address the problem, if badly. I think it's a load of billhooks because "I see that Xmas will fall on a Sunday" , for example, is not "be". Anyway, the three examples given are precisely the futures with "will" to which another person can answer "Perhaps not" , unlike Xmas (though maybe not unlike "I'll be 49 next birthday").
"Be
The verb be is an exception with will. Even when we have a very firm plan, and we are not speaking spontaneously, we can use will with be. Look at these examples:
I will be in London tomorrow.
There will be 50 people at the party.
The meeting will be at 9.30 am. "
This was in
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb ... e-will.htm
so someone has tried to address the problem, if badly. I think it's a load of billhooks because "I see that Xmas will fall on a Sunday" , for example, is not "be". Anyway, the three examples given are precisely the futures with "will" to which another person can answer "Perhaps not" , unlike Xmas (though maybe not unlike "I'll be 49 next birthday").
It doesn't say what is the alternative if not "will be". I can't see why we cannot use Simple Present if the plan is certain:JuanTwoThree wrote:Poking about the learner sites I was surprised to see this last paragraph:
"Be
The verb be is an exception with will. Even when we have a very firm plan, and we are not speaking spontaneously, we can use will with be. Look at these examples:
I will be in London tomorrow.
There will be 50 people at the party.
The meeting will be at 9.30 am. "
This was in
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verb ... e-will.htm
Ex: Unfortunately I am in Melbourne tomorrow, so I won't be able to re-list it until some time next week.
Ex: I am in Derry tomorrow on business and if i have time i will nip into Culmore tip and pop in to see the owl as well!
I used searching machine and I found a lot of such examples. I think the grammar web page above is pointing out we seldom say 'be' in Present Progressive.
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JuanTwoThree
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- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:30 am
- Location: Spain
Needless to say you have only half understood. You're right in one respect, the examples of plans given in that website for learners would not work with Present Continuous, which is interesting though hardly astute. "Be" is after all the most stative of all the statives.
The question is why fall back on the "will" future when the "going to" would be the natural ally of the Pres Cont . Precisely because these are three of the most terrible examples of the " future as inevitable fact": all of them are boring "will" with the fingers crossed about things that might not happen after all.
I'm not talking about plans. I'm talking about "The next leap year will happen in 2008" which seems as good if not better than "going to happen" and "is happening" . It's an odd use of a modal verb and all that implies.
(Be warned, on your return I vowed never to be either the moth or the flame again and I will go back to pretending you don't exist if you patronise me (especially when you can't spell "excellent" ) misrepresent me in order to argue with me, introduce irrelevancies, make absolutely no sense, "prove" show" "or "demonstrate" anything at all, use enormous typefaces or do any of the myriad of things calculated to get a long way up my and everybody else's nose that you are over-prone to do. So far so good.)
The question is why fall back on the "will" future when the "going to" would be the natural ally of the Pres Cont . Precisely because these are three of the most terrible examples of the " future as inevitable fact": all of them are boring "will" with the fingers crossed about things that might not happen after all.
I'm not talking about plans. I'm talking about "The next leap year will happen in 2008" which seems as good if not better than "going to happen" and "is happening" . It's an odd use of a modal verb and all that implies.
(Be warned, on your return I vowed never to be either the moth or the flame again and I will go back to pretending you don't exist if you patronise me (especially when you can't spell "excellent" ) misrepresent me in order to argue with me, introduce irrelevancies, make absolutely no sense, "prove" show" "or "demonstrate" anything at all, use enormous typefaces or do any of the myriad of things calculated to get a long way up my and everybody else's nose that you are over-prone to do. So far so good.)
As for the same future happening, different persons will see different degrees of certainty. You tell me "John is going to marry June", and I will pass the words to others, "John will marry June." As for John himself, he is so certain and will say, "I marry/am marrying June next weekend."JuanTwoThree wrote: I'm not talking about plans. I'm talking about "The next leap year will happen in 2008" which seems as good if not better than "going to happen" and "is happening" . It's an odd use of a modal verb and all that implies.