This is the type of intelligent, informative, discussion for which I joined
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N. Scott Catledge
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
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Subject: ATEG Digest - 4 Sep 2010 to 5 Sep 2010 (#2010-145)
There is 1 message totalling 252 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. On English modals
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Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2010 09:26:30 -0400
From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: On English modals
For an interesting recent discussion of this, see Joan Bybee's
"Language, Usage, and Cognition" (Cambridge, 2010.) I apologize if I'm
oversimplifying as I try to give this a non-technical spin.
1) Eight of the nine principal modals (with the exception of "will")
were preterite-present verbs: verbs that evolved present tense
meanings for past tense forms, then developed a new (added -d) past
tense form to compensate, though some of this occurs outside the
historical record.
2) Within Old English, all of these verbs could be used as the main
finite verb of a clause OR as an auxiliary with another main verb.
Over time, their use as main verb became less frequent, then
disappeared, although it is important to note that this occurred more
rapidly for some verbs than for others. "Shall," for example,
grammaticalized much more rapidly than "will."
3) The use of modal auxiliaries in English "increased gradually in
frequency from the Old English period right up to the present....By
the middle of the sixteenth century, about one third of all finite
clauses had a modal in them" (Bybee, 123).>
4) She traces the path of "am going to" as it grammaticalizes toward a
modal function within the modern record.
Stage one: I am going to the park. (movement toward goal.)
Stage two: I am going to marry the girl next door. (Expression of
intention.)
Stage three: It is going to rain (epistemic prediction, somewhat
interchangeable with "will").
If we look at this as an historical process (what linguists call a
diachronic view), it makes sense that these are not going to be
discreet categories. Even our undisputed current modals would not fit
the category in their early manifestations. They, in effect, grew into
it. The language seems to be evolving greater reliance on modals over
time, with new words and phrases being pulled into use for those ends.
Craig
Rodney Huddleston did a paper in a volume that I lent out and never got
> back and I'm blanking on the title--something like Studies in English?
> Anyway the paper was an analysis of traits of English verbs, and his major
> point was that categories like modal are a lot fuzzier than we generally
> believe them to be. The basic nine modals (can, could, may, might, will,
> would, shall, should, must) all behave alike in a lot of ways, although
> will/would is more consistent under sequence of tenses than, say,
> may/might or shall/should. "Must" is distinct in being a past form of
> "mote," an older modal that died out around the 16th c., and is a preterit
> present that has no modern past form since it is itself past in form.
> "Need" and "ought" share fewer properties of modals, and "let" and "make"
> still fewer although like modals they take the bare infinitive. The
> problem here lies with too strict an adherence to the notion "category,"
> not with the facts of English. Categories are sets of properties, but the
> properties get defined on particular words and are not fully the same from
> word to word, so we're probably talking about arch-types here. The basic
> nine modals come close to forming an arch-typal category, but don't quite
> make it.
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Yates
> Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 11:17 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: On English modals
>
> Despite what Herb says, "Without adopting a particular theory" the
> following is very much a statement from a particular theory:
>
> . . . . whether a verb is modal or not doesn't depend simply on whether it
> occurs without "to" or not. It is very much a semantic function.
>
> Of course, if you think there are grammatical categories, based on formal
> properties, then defining modals in English is relatively simple.
>
> Property 1: Modals never take do support.
>
> 1a) He can speak English.
> b) *He does not can speak English
> c) He cannot speak English
>
> So need and ought are modals.
>
> 2) He ought not to speak English
> 3) He need not speak English
>
> (I recognize that need as main verb does take do-support
> 4) He doesn't need to speak English.
>
> Property 2: Modals never take the agreement s.
>
> 5) *He cans speak English.
>
> See 1(a).
>
> 6) *He oughts to speak English.
> 7) *He needs speak English.
>
> Property 3: Modals have tense, so they never occur in tenseless position.
>
> This property is related to not taking the agreement-s.
>
> You can say the following and I'm not sure how big the meaning difference
> is.
>
> 8) I am able to speak English.
> 9) I can speak English.
>
> Note that 10 is possible, but 11 isn't.
>
> 10) I want to be able to speak English.
> 11) *I want to can speak English.
>
> (You can make the same point with "must" and "have to."
>
> I have no idea what "semantic explanation" explains why 10 is possible but
> 11 isn't.
>
> Property 4: Only one modal can occur in a verb phrase.
>
> There are some dialects of English that permit double modals, but they are
> not widespread.
>
> 12a) He should ought to speak English.
> b) He might could speak English.
>
> All speakers of English allow.
>
> 13a) He can hope to go.
> b) It can tend to swerve.
> c) It can appear to reflect light.
>
> etc.
>
> If modals are a category with a set of formal properties, deciding what
> is or isn't a modal is not that difficult.
>
> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
>
>>>> "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]> 09/04/10 6:48 PM >>>
> Without adopting a particular theory, I suspect the choice of analysis
> depends in part on the presence or absence of "to." Many English verbs
> take infinitives without" to," verbs like "let," "make," and perception
> verbs like "see," "hear," "watch," etc. And, of course, the nine modal
> auxiliaries notably take infinitives without "to." There are a few verbs
> that behave both ways, like "need" and "ought." We can say "You need not
> do that" and "You ought not leave yet" but also "You need to do that" and
> "You ought to leave now," which is why "need" and "ought" are often called
> "semi-modals." So whether a verb is modal or not doesn't depend simply on
> whether it occurs without "to" or not. It is very much a semantic
> function.
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brett Reynolds
> Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 3:32 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: nominal use of prepositional phrases? prep phrase as direct
> object?
> Importance: Low
>
> On 2010-09-04, at 3:15 PM, J. Hill wrote:
>
>> One suspicion I've harbored for years about the constructions like "I
>> hope to improve," "tends to go," "decided to go," "appears to go," etc.,
>> is that the main verb is actually the infinitive and the first verb we
>> see is actually a different kind of modal auxiliary verb. Here's my
>> line of thinking:
>>
>> - like modals, the verbs "hope, tend, decided, appears" give information
>> about the mood in which we should take the verb/actions "improve, go."
>> - when normal modals are used in a verb phrase, they dictate that the
>> verb coming after them must be in the base, or infinitive, form.
>> Normally, this infinitive form elides the "to" (thus, "must go," "can
>> eat"), but a different kind of modal might modify the type of infinitive
>> needed. More specifically, if "hope," etc., above are another class of
>> modals, it could be a more open set than the normal list of 8-10.
>> Therefore, to avoid confusion, the full form of the infinitive may be
>> needed.
>> - in these constructions, thinking of the infinitive as a nominal
>> instead of the actual main verb of the sentence doesn't seem to fit my
>> natural sense of the sentence (something naturally open to
>> interpretation). That is, I see "I hope to improve" more as a version
>> of "I improve" than as a version of "I hope something." Maybe that's
>> because verb phrases used as nominals will always inhabit that gray area
>> between nouns and verbs, but I still see "improving" as the main point
>> of the verb phrase.
>>
>> What do you all think about this possibility?
>
> The same thing has occurred to me, and I find it an appealing notion. But
> I would say you need to be clear about what system you're working in.
> Syntactically, I think the analysis has serious problems. (In fact,
> syntactically, I would go so far as to say that auxiliaries typically
> function as the head of their own VP.) Semantically, I think the idea
> stands on firmer ground, but then I know very little about semantics, so
> I'm just speculating.
>
> Best,
> Brett
>
> -----------------------
> Brett Reynolds
> English Language Centre
> Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning Toronto,
> Ontario, Canada [log in to unmask]
>
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End of ATEG Digest - 4 Sep 2010 to 5 Sep 2010 (#2010-145)
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